


Depth Over Distance

by theflyjar



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adultery, Affairs, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Break Up, Cheating, Confusion, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Infidelity, Established Relationship, Heartbreak, Infidelity, Kissing, Love, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-07-26 16:00:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 33,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7580755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyjar/pseuds/theflyjar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We draw lines in the sand to partition ourself between right and wrong. There are waves that crash over them and they can still be seen when those peaks withdraw from it. It is those who are the tides that change everything. They rub away your lines, they make it seem like they never existed. But that's what you get when you draw your lines into sand and not concrete; you're asking for change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to anybody who put up with me talking about this fic almost constantly, especially DU.

A fast paced life was a given in the city, people rushed between one another with a consciousness of their own personal space but remain uncaring of others’ and cars jam in the streets as they try to take those unwilling to walk to their destinations. It could all be seen when everything bustled by the windows of cafes and restaurants where life slowed slightly. It was there that people took a breath before returning to the daily crush of work and home, businessmen and women stuck in ruts of paperwork and numbers and doctors topping up on coffee before heading out to their shifts. There were even parents, mothers surrounded by children and father’s keeping youngsters in line when they all arrived for cakes or cold drinks.

Yixing could see it all from where he sat, his fingers tapped on the wooden surface in front of him as his stomach twisted hungrily and he could feel everything moving freely around him. He checked the time on his phone before sighing slightly and laid his palms out flatly on the bare table before he cast his glance out to the street once more. Time seemed to go slowly as he waited and he jolted when a warm hand settled on his shoulder.

“Are you ready to order yet?” Jongdae, the barista who always worked Wednesday afternoons, queried softly while Yixing looked around to him.

“How long has it been?” Yixing asked instead, even though he knew the exact number of minutes that had passed since his arrival.

“Fifty-three minutes,” the worker told him with a sad smile, Yixing’s heart clenching at the knowledge that somebody else, too, had been keeping the time in the way he had. “Want me to get you your usual?”

Yixing nodded, picking up his phone and dialling the last called number in his contacts list and held the device to his ear. It didn’t even ring, there was a gentle beep and the automated voice service providers used to tell callers that the line wasn’t available. He placed his phone back to the table without leaving a message and placed his focus on watching Jongdae work his magic at the coffee machine, the Korean man obviously concentrated on getting the balance of flavours as accurate as he could in the cup. Yixing found it soothing to watch people work, the way their faces became serious and full of want to please whoever they were working for.

It wasn’t long until Minseok, another Korean man, appeared with a large grin on his face and Yixing’s food already served on a plate. Food was a loose term for the microwaved muffin, the one that had a gooey caramel centre and a white chocolate button that had melted on the top. The cake was the singular weekly treat Yixing gave himself, his mouth always watered at the sight of it and it was his biggest guilty pleasure to date. That and the ridiculously sweet drink Jongdae was concocting just for him.

The younger of the two baristas appeared just behind Minseok as he placed the plate on the table, the drink accompanied by a glass of water to wash away the sticky feeling sugary sweets always left in Yixing’s throat and on the backs of his teeth. He bowed his head in thanks and accepted the cup from Jongdae’s hands. They both stood there as Yixing lifted the warm drink to his lips but his phone began to vibrate on the table, the name popping up has Yixing almost throwing his drink back down on the saucer which had been offered to him.

“Baekhyun,” he greeted, his mouth smiled slightly and his eyes drifted down to the empty seat ahead of him.

 _"Hey Xing, I’m going to have to cancel on our coffee date. I know it’s our weekly thing but the guys are all meeting up to plan that vacation I was telling you about, so I’m going to head there,"_  the voice came through the earpiece with a clarity that Yixing didn’t have to strain to hear. _"I hope you weren’t waiting for me long. I saw your calls, I’ll make it up to you."_

“No, it’s okay,” Yixing assured as he heard the two cafe workers mutter out their disapproval. “I was calling to say I couldn’t make it anyway, work has been a little ridiculous at the minute and I didn’t have the time to take.”

 _"Oh, that’s good then,"_  Baekhyun was smiling on the other end of the phone, Yixing sensed it in his voice. _“There’s always next week."_

“Always,” Yixing nodded, even though the word tasted a little bitter on his tongue.

_"I’ll see you at home later. I’m not sure what time I’ll be back, though, so don’t don’t wait up too long for me. Love you."_

“Okay,” Yixing muttered as the disconnect tone cut him off. “Love you, too.”

He placed his phone in his shirt pocket, lifted the knife that had come on the plate with his muffin and cut the cake up with it.

“Please don’t say anything,” Yixing mumbled, knowing that his two friends would have a few comments to what they’d just witnessed.

“But it’s the seventh week in a row that he’s cancelled on you and that’s just these little lunch dates that we know of,” Minseok spoke as he sat down opposite him and Jongdae took his place beside Yixing. “You don’t have to lie about actually being here, it’s okay to get mad. He’s your boyfriend and he isn’t making the time for you.”

“Why are you saying it’s okay for him to bail out of all your plans when it clearly isn’t?”

“It’s easier than making him feel guilty for having fun and enjoying his life,” Yixing placed one of the chunks he had cut up into his mouth and chewed gently. “As long as he’s happy then I don’t mind.”

“Being selfless about your own happiness for the sake of a boyfriend only works when they reciprocate that sentiment.”

“This muffin tastes different, is there a new recipe?” Yixing switched topics, leaving Minseok to openly eye roll and Jongdae to make a whining noise in his throat.

“Yes,” Minseok muttered, “it’s got a whole lot of backbone in there to give you the courage to tell your boyfriend that you’re not happy with how he’s acting.”

Yixing ignored his friends as they went back to work, leaving the money for his food on the table and not giving it to the two of them personally to avoid any more talk about his relationship.

He left the cafe and walked slowly down the edge of the street, numerous bodies crashed into his as he walked down a few blocks to the book editing office he walked in. He sat down at his desk, looking at the large pile that had accumulated in his _in-tray_ over his hour and fifteen-minute lunch break. He picked up the first manuscript and began to flick through it, read the prose and making suggested edits in his HB pencil in the margins.

He always read through the entire book first without making any notes, ensuring that the plot lined up and that he himself was drawn into the story before he even decided whether or not it was worth the corrections. There was always at least one ‘throw-out’ book on his desk, the one that was called in as a favour to one of the other editors in the department but was badly written by some women who thrived on childhood fantasy and bad metaphors to get her through forty-five thousand words of a diabolical plot. Yixing often sent them back to his chief with a clear red _'_ _X'_ on them, a sign that he shouldn’t even give the title a glance.

He could lose himself in his work as an editor, especially when a manuscript landed on his desk that was well written, balanced and unique to anything he had read before. Those infrequent gems were the ones that had Yixing at his desk for hours on end as he drank through cups of coffee to keep himself alert enough to get through it from cover-less front to its cover-less back. He always longed for those on bad days, his imagination could run wild with the characters and he often forgot to take notes to send up to the head editor.

However, most of the first drafts he scoured through were mediocre, the kind that could be picked up in an airport, read on the plane and then forgotten about once the reader had returned home. Yixing was fully aware that once his revisions were made to the books, they would be a little more scintillating and memorable to the readers. That was always the mindset he went into his work with, _'how can I make this memorable for all the right reasons?'._

He loved watching an author evolve their work from something that would sell in the summer to a book that people would pick up over and over again until the pages began to fall from the spine. Those were satisfying to see the final manuscript of. He could rest easy knowing that the author had been given the direction their story needed and that they had the perfect title, too. Nevertheless, they were also the ones he was the most disappointed in when they weren’t given the right cover, the right printing paper, the right typeface or the right typesetting when they got bound; as that was often how people chose their books. Despite that common known saying.

He read through the first set of prints quickly, the fluffy teen-lit which should have never made it to his desk that he gave to his colleague a few tables away, and slowed as he got to the adult literature but still gave them away if they had specialist themes that one of his workmates could edit better than he could.

Yixing had a habit for when he found a line or section that stood out to him amongst the fog of words, he always printed it out and stuck it somewhere on his desk for him to look at if that part was cut from the final print. He had found something in the fifth draft he skimmed through, it struck a chord within him as he read it for the seventh time and left him thinking as his pencil tapped on the white paper.

 

_'There are bridges in life that need to be burned, the ones shared with people who act without care or those who act with malicious intent. They groan under their own weight, covered with cracks that strike through the hearts of their foundations and crumble whenever the water gets too rough. It’s easy to spot those, the vicious and poisonous people who wear their malice outwardly as if they’re prepared to have all ties severed with._

_There are bridges in life that remained pristine, joining two people together in a sanctity that stretched across the clear, crystalline water below. Those people are the ones to be cherished, to be the names that your mouth smiles around and who allow a flow of emotion to run back and forth unimpeded. They’re the family, the friends and sometimes the lovers you hold dearest. Those bridges are love._

_There are bridges that appear rickety, the ones that look as though they shake when the wind blows too hard. They have weeds growing between the cracks, they crumble at the edges, but nowhere else, and they have weathered with time. They never fall, they stay perfect under the superficial shells around them. They are everlasting. Those are the people who come into life like a hurricane, the ones who appear to be the wrong thing for you in the beginning but then fill every gap you’ve been missing. They never let you drown._

_There bridges that are riddled with concrete cancer beneath their veneer of perfection. They often fall on their own, metal twisting upwards and creating a beastly sculpture to destroy everything around them. They leave nothing to burn, only a gaping ruin in the heart of the riverbank and no sense of closure. They leave people drowning in the water, they take as many with them as they can until there’s nothing left at all. They are the baying wolves dressed up as gutless sheep.'_

 

He mulled over that section for a while before he found the digital version of the piece on his company’s cloud server, he copied the part and sent it to the printer before he outlined it with three exclamation marks as his comment. Always a good sign for the head editor. Yixing read through the rest of the book and knew it was the bare bones of a story that could easily be a bestseller of given the right conditions to grow and expand. The ending left room for a sequel while being enough to easily cut the arc off without any pressure of a follow-up plot, it was perfect. The editor always loved books that ended with something readers would be happy with but not confused over if there was a series created from it. He made sure his pencil was sharpened before picking the piece apart with a fine-toothed comb.

Yixing only stopped working when one of his coworkers told him that he would miss his last train home if he were to stay any longer, to which he realised that time had gone too quickly and he picked the manuscript off his desk and slipped into his bag with a soft thud. He followed the other editors out to the street and followed the path to the subway station with them, even though he wasn’t too social with them. None of them got on his line, all of them turned off with small waves to him and Yixing got to his platform just as the last train was pulling up and he smiled in relief that he could get on without any worries with only the other late night workers in the carriage he got on.

He pulled out the earphones he had in his pocket and plucked out his phone from where he had put it in the cafe earlier that day, he tapped his fingers along to the beat of the song he was listening to and watched his own reflection in the glass opposite him. He looked a little dull, his clothes were wrinkled from the sitting at his desk for most of the day, his hair had gone slightly curly from the humid air outside and his eyes looked tired under the fluorescent lighting above his head.

Yixing got off at his station, shifting his bag around before he began the ten-minute walk to the apartment he shared with his boyfriend. The lock for their door always stuck and had to be jiggled before the key could be turned, it was a nuisance when the person opening it was too tired or drunk to remember. He took his shoes off, rolling his ankles slightly as he did so to hear a satisfying click before he put some slippers on, he headed straight to the kitchen and took some leftover takeout from the fridge to heat up in the microwave. Yixing took the stuff he had brought home from work out of his back and put it on his bed, leaving to get his food and eating it quickly over the bin before throwing the container out and getting in the shower.

The editor didn’t spend too much time out of the bathroom before he was under his duvet and working again, he didn’t stop until he finished looking over the very last word of the very last page. It was only then that he looked at the time on his phone, which he had plugged in to charge. It was getting close to 2AM and Baekhyun still wasn’t back. Though, given the hour, he would probably choose to stay with whichever of his friends lived closest to wherever he was. Yixing wished he could say something about how he wanted a little bit more attention from the younger or that he wanted to be able to get into a bed that already had somebody waiting for him in. He didn’t want any grand gestures, he just wanted to share the time he had with somebody else.

He curled around himself, holding his own knees up as he face outwards from the bed to not see how empty the other side was and he fell asleep like that. Quiet, alone and wishing for somebody to hold.

Even when he woke up the next morning, Baekhyun was nowhere to be seen and there was only a short text saying that he had stayed with a friend, like Yixing had expected, and was headed to work already. The editor put his phone in his bag, picked up some cereal bars for breakfast before he headed out again. He wasn’t shocked by the lack of presence in his apartment but he didn’t like that he was slowly getting used to it. When he and Baekhyun had moved in together, they had discussed how they would make the space their own but Yixing could only feel himself there, it was more like living alone again and he didn’t want that. He was just too scared to do anything to change it, he didn’t want to argue and make Baekhyun feel like he was being suffocated by the elder.

It wasn’t like he thought Baekhyun didn’t love him, he knew he did and Yixing reciprocated. Maybe they had just got to the point where outward affection had turned into fondness already, that the falling in love feeling had gone and that they were in that steady period every long term relationship hit. As he locked the door behind himself, he reassured himself of that. He and Baekhyun loved each other and their relationship was stable, that’s all that should matter to them both.

 

◎◉◎

 

“I just sent it up to you,” Yixing spoke into the phone over the background noise of his office, “it should be there in about ten minutes.”

 _“And you’re sure that it should go to the boss,”_ the head editor’s assistant asked him and Yixing wanted to roll his eyes, he never sent something below par up to the main office.

"Trust me, it’s great,” Yixing tried to reassure the worried man on the other end. “She’s got it right this time. I think it could be a bestseller.”

_"How close to certain are you, Mr Zhang?"_

“About as certain as I can be without being certain,” Yixing smiled and the man laughed out slightly at the editor’s lack of willingness to be liable if the book were to be a complete flop in sales. “I’ve got some more manuscripts to check through before I go on lunch but tell the boss that my mobile is on if she wants to talk about the draft.”

 _"Sure, sure,"_  the assistant hummed, _"I’ll leave you to it then."_

The line cut off without Yixing saying anything more but he wasn't too fussed about it, he was used to people not ending phone conversations without a goodbye or without letting him respond. He went to make himself a cup of coffee, topping up his caffeine dose and hoped that it would be enough to last him before he ran to Jongdae's café to pick up his daily lunchbox that his friends made.

Instant coffee wasn't his favourite to drink, it was always a little more on the bland side and Yixing never failed to have a small bottle of vanilla syrup in his desk drawer to give it a slightly sweeter taste. Given his drinking habits, he was surprised that he hadn't yet lost any of his teeth and that his dentist always told him how well his teeth appeared. He drank half the drink before he sat back down, which wasn't much out of the norm but he found himself staring at the coffee stained bottom of the mug all too quickly when he had gulped the rest of it down before setting his hands on his next book. It was a short story, a mere seven thousand words compared to the novel he had been working on for a week and Yixing was glad that it was one of their frequent submitters.

He could tell who it was from the opening paragraph, their style had remained identical in the two years that Yixing had been doing his job and the editor could see how the author had taken all the advice given to her in how her plots ran. There was a smoother transition from the opening to the rest of the book, it was a comfort for Yixing to be able to settle with familiarity for a short while as he wound down to get ready for lunch. He balanced his pen on his top lip as he scanned through the piece, searching for any obvious typos and mistakes until his phone's buzzer went off.

The signal for his lunch had him packing up, he scanned his eyes over the clock and left with his bag over one shoulder. It was a faster walk to the cafe, his feet worked by muscle memory and it wasn't too long before he opened the door and heard his name be called by Jongdae behind the counter.

"Lunch?" The Korean asked while his eyebrow raised slightly and Yixing nodded. "Min, grab Hyung's lunch from the fridge."

The other barista appeared thirty seconds later with a reusable box in his hands, Yixing wasn't entirely sure what was in it but he didn't mind too much, the two Korean men always seemed to know exactly what he would like whenever they experimented with their food. Yixing was often the person they tested their menu ideas out on, especially since they had been dabbling with the idea of doubling up as a restaurant.

"You might want some water, I don't know how salty it will be," Minseok warned, handing over a set of chopsticks in a plastic wrapper and Yixing nodded, lifting one of their water bottles out of the open refrigerator that held their soft drinks. He handed over the money for the food and the drink, smiling widely at his friends.

"Thank you guys, I'm sure I'll love this," Yixing could feel his dimple appear before he bowed his head in a quick goodbye, he left the cafe and turned in the opposite direction of the cafe to head towards the park that wasn't too far away.

Yixing liked eating alone there, it was a peaceful environment away from the warm smell of printer paper and stale coffee. There were benches everywhere but Yixing always went to the same one, it had a bin next to it and looked into some trees. In the spring and summer, the leaves acted as a barrier to the sound of the roads surrounding the park and there were few people in that direction of the park. It was autumn, so there only ever seemed to be dog walkers that Yixing encountered along the path, which wasn't a bad thing other than the odd animal taking an interest in what he was eating.

The editor nodded to the people he saw on a semi-regular basis, smiling softly at them and sometimes muttering a hello when he was close enough to them. He took his seat quickly, breaking the chopsticks out and throwing the casing away before he took the lid off the box. He looked at the noodles coated in a light brown sauce that he seemed unfamiliar with and dug the wooden utensils into them before he brought them up to his lips. He could tell what Minseok meant when he said he thought it would be salty, his mouth almost immediately dried up and he fumbled to open up his water.

He made a definitive note to tell the cafe owners to lay off the intense seasoning of the sauce, as he wasn't entirely sure he could get through the whole box without fearing dehydration. The editor tried to eat as much as he could before throwing the remaining third of the food in the bin, which was saddening as he wished he could eat more of it and he knew he would have to leave the park earlier to drop into a store to buy himself a snack to tide him over until dinner.

Yixing checked his phone, not seeing anything from Baekhyun there as the lockscreen opened up to show their message thread. He could see that the other had read his message but not replied, which wasn't an issue for Yixing; he was just as bad as replying. It was the fact that the previous messages of his had been read and not responded to which frustrated him. Not only did they barely communicate face to face, it was all one-sided on their phones and Yixing was quickly tiring when he would receive nothing back.

Yixing wiped his mouth as something ran at his legs and barked loudly, he yelped and brought his knees up his chest in fear of what had touched him. He knew it was a dog, he was just unsure of the intentions the animal had in running at him. The editor relaxed slightly as he spied the lead trailing from beneath the bench and he sighed out happily when he saw a poodle attached to it. It was the small kind, the ones that were fluffy and made snuffling noises when they were excited. He bent down and held out his hand, smiling slightly as a wet nose bumped into his palm and quickly moved to show that he wanted to be petted.

"Oh my god," a voice from a few metres away cried out in relief, "Rourou, what are you doing? I am so sorry. He didn't try to hump your leg or anything, right?"

Yixing looked up to see the man, he couldn't pinpoint any specific features on his face because of how brightly the sun was shining behind him but it was obvious that the man was tall. Far taller than anybody Yixing had encountered.

"Uh no," he shook his head honestly. "Should I be insulted that he didn't try to?"

"Heavens no, he is the definition of a horny dog. He, _Rourou_ , would never let you go," the man awkwardly laughed. "I've had him for under a year but I can tell that this phase is going to haunt me."

"Well, you can rest easy tonight. He did not try to defile any part of my body, all I've had is a wet nose to the hand," he raised up his left palm with the intention of proving his theory and the man seemed to sag down in relief.

"I'm glad," the man moved slightly and Yixing's eyes followed him, still finding it difficult to take in the appearance of the stranger as the light softened.

Yixing wished he could see the tall male, he could make out some of his darker features like where his browline was and where his mouth sat beneath where Yixing guessed his nose was. That was all, it was a struggle for Yixing to place the man.

"Maybe you should keep him on a shorter leash if he has that habit?" Yixing suggested whilst his dimple politely revealed itself to the man and he watched as the stranger's gaze flitted to it to linger there for a couple of seconds before returning to his eyes.

"I do normally but I accidentally clicked the elongate button and suddenly he was off," the man awkwardly scratched the back of his neck and Yixing couldn't help but smile.

"It's a good job no harm was done then."

"I agree. I'm Wu Yifan, by the way."

Yixing held out his hand for the other to shake, "I'm Zhang Yixing."

"It's nice to meet you. I walk through here sometimes and see you eating your lunch, it's good to put a name to a face."

"Consider this face fully named," Yixing nodded, lifting his bag up from the floor and he stuffed the plastic lunch container into it and throwing the chopsticks away. "I'll see you around, Yifan."

"I'll come over and say hi when I'm next here."

"Do that, I'd like that," Yixing nodded, his stomach bubbled with something foreign but he ignored it, he placed it down to the salty food he'd just eaten. "I'll get going, work beckons me." The editor bent down onto his knees and scratched the small dog's head. "I'll see you too, Rourou. Don't go chasing after too many legs, you'll drive your owner insane."

Yixing rose back up and waved awkwardly at the man as he passed, beelining straight for the park exit and back into the hustle and bustle of daily life in the city. He made sure to stop off at one of the convenience stores along the way, collected refrigerated coffee and a few snacks he could put in his drawer at his desk. He left smiling, thinking about the man with the cute dog in the park.

The editor hadn't realised how flustered the man seemed when his dog had run off until he sat down in his chair and looked at the dwindling pile of manuscripts on his workspace. Yifan had appeared out of breath and Yixing was sure there would have been a blush to his cheeks, had he been able to see them. The vision of such a tall man chasing a poodle through the park had him huffing out laughter as he worked, especially given that Yifan was worried that his dog would try to get it on with somebody's leg. Yixing found himself grinning as he worked for the first time in a while because of a complete stranger.

Yixing worked hard for the rest of the afternoon, his pencil running through his work at an incredible pace and before he knew it, his short story had been completed. There were no dramatic and needless plot twists at the end, something many unpublished authors thought they had to do to make their work different from the rest of the market. He felt relieved that he could send something up to the head editor of short stories, rather than straight back to the author with a list of mistakes to correct. He placed it inside one of the large envelopes that were on his desk and decided that he could read the freshly printed pieces on his desk and find the ones to edit before he went back to work the next morning.

He smiled for most of the day, enjoying listening to the gentle banter of his colleagues as they all worked on their books online. He would often get screenshots sent to him through their IM system of sections that were embarrassing, especially from the group who specialised in erotica. They often complained that a certain book series had led to the increase of poorly written books by women who were still stuck in their unrealistic fantasies, it made their job far less exciting than any of them thought it would ever be.

Yixing was genuinely glad that he got the dregs of the barrel, the ones where the author didn't explicitly explain the genre in their cover letter or their agent wasn't entirely sure what to describe it as. That made his work exciting, it allowed him to look forward to something new every day.

And having your day made by a flustered dog owner wasn't a bad mix for working hard, most people worked better when their spirits were lifted and Yixing meeting a foot tall poodle had seemed to have done the trick. He was no longer lingering on the lack of communication between him and Baekhyun, he thought about how such a strikingly tall man could have let a dog give him the runaround. Quite literally.

The editor smiled the whole way home, still flicking through the last piece of the day, and it only faded as his entrance went unacknowledged. He couldn't hear anybody in the rooms or the water running past in the pipes, it was completely silent. Save for the music his neighbour played to send her baby off to sleep. Yixing locked the door behind himself and went straight to the kitchen once his shoes had been exchanged for slippers. He saw a box of chicken out on the counter with a post-it stuck on it. He lifted the yellow paper off and red over the scrawled message.

_'I hope this helps you today ^^ I will see you soon. B'_

Yixing wished that his daily conversations with his boyfriend weren't just limited to a few words on a piece of paper. He wanted to be able to sit down with the other and talk about his day while they ate together, how they used to when they had first moved in together. However, he knew Baekhyun was a social butterfly. He thrived on interacting with new people and numerous faces in the day, he had a large cohort of people in his pocket that he spent his time circulating around and Yixing was often told that he was lucky to have found somebody so animated all the time.

Baekhyun was somebody who tried to consider everybody all at once, meaning that he often had to shift his priorities to accommodate whoever he had been missing out on at that time. He split his social life and his working hours in a way that meant that Yixing was left alone, which hadn't been a bad thing in the beginning. They had both worried that living together in such a small apartment would have caused unnecessary friction in the beginning and, if there was anything Yixing hated more than being alone, it was being engaged in conflict. He didn't want to argue, he wanted to be a positive point in his boyfriend's life then he accepted what it took to make Baekhyun happy.

If that meant only coming home for a couple of nights in the week, Yixing would readily take what he was given.

 

◎◉◎

 

A few days passed with blustery rain and horrible winds, meaning that Yixing was stuck in his office for his lunch break until it all blew over. He hadn't even bothered to try and go to Jongdae's cafe with the weather in such a state, he knew that his clothes would have remained soaked through for the rest of the day and a cup of brilliantly made coffee wasn't worth the high risk of flu. No matter how much had begun to loathe instant coffee.

He had even begun to lose a little motivation with his work worrying about his two friends worrying about him and having the concern that Baekhyun had left his coat at home on the hook it rested on. Yixing had sent the younger a text with a wish of him staying dry and warm until the weather front moved on, which he actually got a reply to when Baekhyun stated that he'd bought another coat from the shop across the street from where he worked. Yixing had felt relief prickle through his body once he'd read it and went straight back to work.

The editor decided to let himself off a little earlier that day, given that it was a Friday and Yixing's boss had told him that he would be made a lead editor on one of the manuscripts he had sent up during the week.

He bit his lip as he braved the rain in search for Jondgae's cafe, seeing as it was right by one of the subway stations he could use to head home. He dashed through the rain, only stopping when something of a chocolate brown colour ran out in front of him and he stumbled to a halt to avoid colliding with it. He found his feet winding backwards as he tried to right his balance, only coming to a full stop when hands clutched at his elbows.

"God, are you okay?" The man worried but Yixing didn't look up at him, his eyes remained on the small creature that was staring up at him with beady eyes.

"You know," Yixing laughed gently, "I’m going to start thinking that you're setting your dog on me on purpose."

"Huh?" The man responded dumbly until Yixing looked up from under his hood with a smile. "Oh god, Yixing, right? From the park the other day?"

"In the flesh," the editor beamed and the man looked horrified that his dog had gone for the same person twice. "He must really like me."

"Who?"

"Your dog," Yixing pointed at the creature, finding it adorable how the creature seemed to flick his gaze from the newcomer to his owner every few seconds as a sign of tracking progress.

"Ah yes, Rourou does seem to have taken to you." Yifan nodded, tugging the small poodle back to his side and they moved out of Yixing's path slightly. "You seemed to have been in a rush, I won't keep you any longer."

"Oh no, I'm not headed to anywhere in particular. I was just running to get out of the rain and duck into a cafe that my friends have around the corner."

"And this little guy has just prolonged your journey, right?"

"No, no, really, I am in no rush."

"Which direction are you going in then?" Yifan asked him, looking up and down the road under the umbrella he was holding.

"Down this street," Yixing pointed in the direction that he had previously been moving in and Yifan took a step forward.

"We'll walk with you then." Yifan stayed in line with Yixing and wanted to coo when he heard the slight clicking of Rourou's claws on the pavement. "How was your day, Yixing?"

"It was really great, actually," Yixing found himself looking up to Yifan with a content smile and the taller nodded his head to urge him on. "The actual work was pretty slow but I was told that I got a promotion, though."

"Are you serious? How are you going to celebrate?"

"I was actually just going to go home and catch an early night. My other half won't be home, so it will just be me in," Yixing bit his lip as Yifan shook his head, the tall male grinning from ear to ear and Yixing found it endearing how the other got excited over the good news a stranger had.

"You can't spend such a day alone with news like this, you need to celebrate in some way."

"An early night is a celebration," Yixing argued and the dog walker shot him a look.

"Why don't you let me take you out for dinner? My treat."

"I shouldn't," Yixing shook his head.

"Why not?"

"I'm in a relationship."

"I didn't ask you to marry me, I just said dinner to congratulate you on something I am sure is well deserved," Yifan retorted easily, his voice carrying happily into Yixing's ears.

Yixing looked down at the pavement semi-bashfully, "But I don't know you."

"That's what the dinner is for, getting to know each other and making sure you have a great day, even when you're without your other half. How else would you make new friends if you don't spend time with new people?"

"I guess so," Yixing nodded, accepting the other's request shyly and Yifan smiled at him. It wasn't anything large or overbearing, it was more genuine and small. A symbol of a little victory. "I'll have to go home and change then."

"More than fine with me, I need to drop the little guy off at home first, too," Yifan shook his leash at that moment, causing the pup to look up at him with a small yip. "I'll meet you at the subway station that's coming up next at like half six, it's not too late then and you can still get your early night."

Yixing mulled the idea over in his mind before nodding his head, "Okay, that sounds like an idea I can be on board for."

"Great, I'll see you later for dinner then," Yifan gave one short wave with two fingers before turning away and crossing the road.

It left Yixing a little dumbstruck as he watched the tall male and his dog disappear into the city crowds, he wasn't quite sure how it all happened so suddenly but he had managed to get both a promotion and company for dinner all on the same day. He was baffled, strangely happy but definitely baffled.

Yixing wasn’t entirely sure what Yifan’s agenda was, they’d only just met and yet the other was treating him as if he were a close friend. Not that Yixing didn’t like it, he found himself being drawn to the warmth of a caring personality constantly. It was why Yixing had Jongdae and Minseok in his life, and Baekhyun too, because they had all cared so deeply about him from almost the moment they met. The editor tried to push the idea that Baekhyun’s care wasn’t as steadfast as his two best friends’ out of his mind, as he knew that it wasn’t true. Baekhyun did love him, he just loved life an equal amount. Not that doing so was a bad thing, as Yixing wanted everybody to be happy and to be able to enjoy themselves day in, day out.

(But maybe Yixing wanted to be the person Baekhyun did that with)

He managed to make his way home on the subway, take a warm shower and drink dissolving decongestant before he changed to ward off the onset of a cold from the walking he had done outdoors. Yixing found himself fretting over his wardrobe choices for the evening. With no idea what to wear, where they were going and what they would be eating, he was almost completely lost with the combinations he had plucked out of his racks.

It was strange how his apartment seemed fit for one person, not a cohabiting couple. It was a cosy place with small box rooms and an old kitchen but it was only supposed to be a stepping stone home for Baekhyun and Yixing, one that they lived in to save up for something a little more spacious later on, something to put their own mark on. But three years down the line, there had been no talk of apartment finding or even saving money for that pipedream.

He didn’t let those thoughts linger either as he finally picked out his clothes, changed into them and sorted his wet hair. There was even a hint of makeup on his cheeks where he covered small blemishes with CC cream and lifted his eyes with a little bit of eyeliner until he felt presentable for dinner anywhere. Yixing hoped with all his might that the evening would go well for him, it was supposed to be a celebration after all. Even if it was with a stranger.

Yixing made his way back to where he had bumped into Yifan and his dog earlier that day with an umbrella in hand, it was far less busy with the rain having reduced down to a drizzle and the rushing to get home had subsided almost completely. It left people like Yixing, those going to meet people, to be the ones who occupied train seating and pathways. Yixing was aware and almost shying away from everybody he saw, just in case he knew them.

In actuality, he knew there was no harm in meeting new people or going out for dinner with those who he wasn't in a relationship with but there was something he felt in his stomach. It was something he wanted to suppress and yet it stayed. It was a sense of slight betrayal, that he was doing something behind Baekhyun's back that he shouldn't be.

That led to Yixing pulling out his phone and typing up a message to his boyfriend that outlined him meeting a new friend and that he was going out for dinner that night, so Baekhyun shouldn't worry if Yixing wasn't there when he got back to the apartment but also that Yixing would not be out for too long. Especially since it was likely that Baekhyun would arrive at the apartment early in the morning and Yixing didn’t want to miss seeing him there.

Yixing read the message back, a part of him told his brain that it was a little over-explanatory, that he could just say _'_ _Going out for dinner, be back later’_ and so he backtracked everything and put that instead. There was no lie in what he had been writing, he hadn't planned on staying out the night with Yifan and that certainly helped to soothe the small hell raging inside of him.

When he saw Yifan waiting for him in an all black, neat ensemble of a pressed shirt and well-fitted jeans and Yifan saw him, that seemed to make a smile cross onto the tall stranger's face, Yixing felt guilty. Not for Baekhyun but for thinking almost lowly of the new yet seemingly genuine person. Yifan hadn't flirted or acted outside of what Yixing could expect from somebody with the want to get to know new people, it was Yixing that had turned things inappropriate in his mind. With the previous worries expelled from his stomach, Yixing let himself smile and dimple at Yifan as he approached in the fine rain.

Yixing’s breath caught in his throat when he finally got a look at Yifan for the first time. The tall man had well-defined features, ones that were sharp but Yixing could see how they softened as the man beamed at him. Yifan’s skin was clear and smooth, the shave on his chin was as close as it could be and Yixing had the urge to run his fingers along Yifan’s prominent jaw to feel it. His eyes were protected by dark and thickly shaped brows but that did nothing to detract from how his curved eyelids made for almond shaped eyes. They were set in a deep brown shade that Yixing knew must have been concocted of hundreds of different tones as they changed shade with every small movement the man made. Yixing was blown away.

Yifan looked otherworldly, his face was completely in proportion but not in the generic way that went with a lot of symmetrical appearing faces, it was unique and Yixing hadn’t ever seen anything like it before. He was dumbstruck with a warm feeling in his chest as he studied Yifan as best as he could.

"I see you have an umbrella this time, good choice," Yifan noted in greeting, gesturing with a loose wrist at the object in the smaller's hand. "I booked us a restaurant not too far from here, so we shouldn't get too wet."

"May I know where we are going?" Yixing enquired and Yifan's lip quirked up at the side, along with his left eyebrow. "What?"

"That sounded really formal," the other said, "and you don't have to be formal with me. You can relax a little, this is supposed to be a celebration for you. And I would tell you if I could remember the name of the restaurant but I really can't, I'll just have to show you when we get there."

"I take it you don't go there often then?" Yixing tried to pry, hoping that Yifan would take the bait and smiled widely when he did.

"I've been a few times but mainly with clients and even then my assistant is the one who books it." Yifan took Yixing's arm by the arm in a light clasp to guide him down the street, it wasn't an intimate gesture like a palm to the back and it wasn't commanding like a grip to the wrist. The entire thing felt guiding and Yixing suspected that Yifan did such things often with how confident the action was.

"Clients?" Yixing pushed gently.

"I'm an art buyer. Artists commission me to sell their work or people who want art get me to find art for them."

Yixing was pleasantly surprised by the response, he had expected Yifan to say that he was a lawyer or that he worked in one of the glass high-rises in the city centre with how he looked and the way he dressed. Each time Yixing had seen him, he looked well put together like one would expect a businessman to.

"I didn't expect that," Yixing admitted, his arm relaxing in the other's hold, "but that does sound really interesting."

"Really? A lot of people think it sounds pretentious," Yifan laughed out in a deep chuckle that made Yixing smile automatically in reaction.

"Well, I work for a publishing house. So people tend to think I'm a uppity literature major who reads foreign poetry in his spare time because _'_ _it connects more to the soul in Italian'._ I get the whole instant turgid notion people have."

Yifan smiled and Yixing watched how his cheeks rose under his eyes, "I'm glad you get it."

They didn't say anything more as they rounded a street corner and Yifan guided him into a restaurant that was brightly lit with overhanging bulbs, large mirrors and pieces of coloured glass that were moulded into ornaments. It felt fresh to walk into and Yixing was glad that there was no fear of mood lighting confusing the tone of the evening. Yixing could tell why Yifan, an art buyer, would take clients to place like that, it screamed out a sense of modernity but the colour scheme made it seem completely friendly.

Yixing was glad to see groups of businessmen, families and evidently well-off teenagers littered around and filling the tables. It wasn't a place for a date and that had his shoulders relaxing until they hung as freely as they normally did. Yifan wasn't trying to woo Yixing or show off, he was keeping to his word of it being a friendly dinner.

The waiting staff showed them to their seats while Yixing's eyes frantically scanned the drinks menu, he tried taking in as much of the food one that he could shortly after. Yifan appeared comfortable with ordering a bottle of beer and his food swiftly, he then engaged the server with light chatter about whether or not it had been busy since his last visit and Yixing was thankful for the stalling technique. Yifan's eyes kept darting towards Yixing and he smoothly closed off the conversation when Yixing had placed the menus back onto the table and the waiter turned to him with a polite regard. The editor reeled off his order and left the two of them to place their requests to the kitchen.

"So, tell me about what you do," Yifan leant forward and Yixing could feel his attentiveness radiating from his eyes.

"Uh," Yixing fumbled. "It's interesting, to say the least. It's mainly ploughing through books and drafts of badly written prose with cliché or weak plots and having to let down writers who clearly spent a lot of time on their work because the publishing house doesn't want to release their work. It's quite hard sometimes actually. Having to tell people that what they slaved over isn't good enough, that is."

"Is celebrating your promotion a bad thing then?"

"Oh no, it's actually a really great thing. There's this writer and she has been trying to get published for a long while now, probably since before I joined the company, and I've been the one going through her work for the past two years. She's one of the only writers who seems to heed the corrections I make or persistently try to get her work out there and _finally_ was able to send some of her work to my boss and she loved it. Now I'm going to be editing this writer's work to print, which I've never done before, and the author apparently told my boss that I've been guiding her brilliantly."

"She sang your praises and you got a promotion?" Yifan asked as if such a thing was unbelievable.

"Pretty much, but I'm now like her personal editor, you know the ones you expect authors to have. All her work will come to me for me to exclusively go through and we'll work together throughout her writing period, rather than me just getting a massive document to rifle through at the end."

"You'll only work with her then?"

Yixing shook his head, smiling up at the waiter as he brought their drinks and food over, "I can if I want but I don't think that will pay enough yet, so I can take some other projects on and keep working while she's writing."

Yifan took a sip of his beer, nodding his head in understanding, "I see, do you get a genre to go through or is it a _'take what you're given'_ atmosphere?"

"There are departments that specialise in certain genres but if there aren't enough or there is too much, you do what you're given," Yixing explained as he took up his chopsticks to begin eating his food. "The departments only tend to matter for publishing and marketing, as those editors have to know their work well enough to advise for target markets and things like that."

"That makes sense," Yifan agreed, following Yixing's heed in beginning his meal.

"What's it like being an art buyer?" Yixing's voice was quieter than he had expected it to be but Yifan heard him over the cheerful noise around them.

"It's fun but hard and a little morbid at times."

"Morbid?" Yixing questioned, thinking he had misheard the other.

Yifan nodded, he chewed on his food before he responded to the query. "A lot of my clients who aren't artists or curators, the ones who want to build their private collections, want pieces by artists who are up-and-coming because then you don't pay too much for work while not sacrificing quality. It's then my job to explain that the real value of an artist's work only really tends to go up in price after they've died, as they're not producing any more work and that makes everything limited edition," Yifan paused for a moment, showing Yixing that he was choosing his next words as carefully as he could. "I've often had clients who have asked for work by artists who are older, the artists who have had years to perfect their style but have only focused on their creative once they retired or something."

"Just because they're closer to dying?" Yixing baulked, his eyes wide and empty mouth hung open in disgusted shock.

"Pretty much. I mean I can see _why_ they would want to do such a thing from a business perspective; those artists are top quality and they'll have less work out there than lifetime artists. It's a good long-term investment to make. But morally? It's the worst part of the job. I can't believe that sometimes these people wish another person dead to get more money from it. I try to work for people who want art because they love art but that's often not where the money lies."

"That's horrible," Yixing agreed and he could see how Yifan's posture had changed slightly after telling him that. "But it's not like you're the one thinking that way."

"I know," Yifan perked up a little. "I think it is just strange that some people in this world are really like that."

The excerpt from the book he had edited popped up in his mind as he looked Yifan over and smiled gently, "They're not the people to surround yourself with, let those bridges burn once they're done."

They didn't say anything more about it as the conversation shifted and Yixing found himself laughing with Yifan for the rest of the dinner because they seemed to share the same sense of humour. Yixing could feel his guard shifting a little as a result of that and found comfort in the fact that nothing about the dinner felt anything like a date. The biggest sign of that was when they wordlessly split the bill, neither of them swooped in to foot the total and that helped to lessen the guilty burden on Yixing's shoulders to nothing. He was happy that Yifan's earlier words of the dinner being his treat weren't acted upon.

Yifan walked him back to the entrance of his subway station and their laughter seemed to echo down the streets.

"I better get back to my dog," Yifan looked down at his watch.

Yixing took his phone out and clicked the home button to light the screen up, which displayed a message from the contact _'伯賢'_ and Yixing could see that Yifan had seen it. He didn't open the text but instead unlocked the device and opened up the onscreen keypad.

"You can put your number in, if you want?" Yixing bit his lip and ignored the part of him that told him that he looked hopeful in a misleading way.

Yifan didn't say anything about that as he nodded his head and tapped the digits in before handing the phone back to Yixing. The owner of the device looked at the new contact made and smiled when he saw the name, _'_ _凡凡'_.

 _"'Fanfan_ _'?_ Are you trying to be cute?"

"Was it successful?"

Yixing laughed and slipped his phone back into his pocket, "A little."

"I really should go, Rourou needs to be walked before I go to sleep," Yixing could see that Yifan didn't exactly want to leave but Yixing understood, he had to head home or he would miss the last train.

"I'll talk to you soon," Yixing didn't know how to go about saying goodbye, so he settled for an awkward wave that Yifan returned before taking a step away from the shorter. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Yixing," Yifan smiled to him and the younger returned it before heading into the station. He didn't look back but clutched his phone tightly in his hand. He thought about Yifan on his journey home and how friendly he was without overstepping any kind of mark.

Yixing didn't know what he was so worried about.

The editor messaged the number Yifan had given him a short thank you in the morning after their dinner, he didn't expect a reply anytime soon so his phone had been put into the bottom of his bag while Baekhyun made the two of them breakfast in the kitchen. The previous night had seen Yixing getting into the flat just before Baekhyun had arrived home but not much conversation was had between them, Yixing could read the tiredness on Baekhyun's features as soon as he saw the other.

"Hyung, the food is done," he heard Baekhyun test out in clumsily accented Chinese.

"I'll be there in a moment," Yixing responded in more confident Korean, not wanting to stress Baekhyun out with translating the words in his head.

Despite living in China for almost five years, Baekhyun hadn't had to learn much of the language because he worked far an international business that used mainly English or Korean. Yixing hadn't minded, as he had taken a Korean language course during his years in university, one that was aided by Jongdae and Minseok. He could see that Baekhyun was trying with the language, especially having only gotten by with the basics of the language he'd learned through his company and his more fluent English. Baekhyun was readying himself to stay in China for the long term, it seemed.

Baekhyun was placing the food on their small table when Yixing walked out into the kitchen, "How's work?"

"Oh, I got promoted," Yixing smiled brightly and Baekhyun's posture changed to one of surprise.

"Why didn't you call? We need to celebrate," the Korean almost shouted out in happiness.

"I didn't want to disturb and it's okay, that's what the dinner last night was for," Yixing dismissed and Baekhyun nodded, still smiling as they slipped back into Korean.

"That doesn't mean we can't still celebrate ourselves," the younger sat down opposite Yixing and dug into the food he'd made. "We'll do something tomorrow, what do you want to do?"

Yixing thought for a moment, considering what he'd really want to do with his boyfriend to celebrate. "Can we just stay in? Watch films, eat popcorn and drink cheap beer, that kind of thing?"

"Like we did when we first moved in together?"

"Yeah," Yixing nodded and Baekhyun agreed, saying he would like to do that.

Yixing finished up his food as Baekhyun filled him in on what was happening in his life and Yixing interjected whenever the conversation needed him to but he always quickly tired of hearing about Baekhyun's friends. Yixing didn't really know them and felt bad for the negative feelings he felt towards them, he felt awfully judgemental. Even though all of his friends seemed a little too loud for Yixing's tastes. He already had Jongdae and Baekhyun, and sometimes even Minseok, for noise.

They left the apartment together but split off at the subway station to go in their opposing directions, Yixing smiled widely as he was set to meet up with Jongdae and Minseok. He was looking forward to his Sunday more than anything.

 

◎◉◎

 

Yixing looked at the clock on the wall of his living room, it was creeping up to midday and Baekhyun still wasn't home for their movie day. The editor reached for his one on the coffee table and saw no contact from Baekhyun at all but as he was about to set it back down, it vibrated in his hand and he immediately slid the newly received message across the screen.

 **From** , 凡凡:

_What are you doing today?_

Yixing didn't linger on the fact that he wasn't disappointed that it wasn't his boyfriend contacting but it was the first time since Yixing's thank you message that he had heard from Yifan, though he guessed that new friends didn't need to text each other constantly.

 **To** , 凡凡:

I was supposed to have a movie day with my boyfriend but I don't think he's able to come, you?

 **From** , 凡凡:

_That's such a shame, are you ok? I'm having a lazy day in bed with Rourou_

Yixing's phone made a dull, shorter vibrating noise as a photo came through of a body under a duvet but the main subject of the image was the small poodle curled up on the lap of the human with his eyes open and mouth just as wide to show his tongue.

 **To** , 凡凡:

Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little bored now. :/

Why do you have such a cute dog? (╯°□°)╯︵┻━┻ It's so unfair

The next message was another from Yifan, a shot of the dog sat on the other side of the large bed on his hind legs, doing the classic _'_ _beg'_ pose.

 **From** , 凡凡:

_RouRou wants to know if you want to meet up?_

**To** , 凡凡:

What does he want to do?

 **From** , 凡凡:

_Lunch?_

**To** , 凡凡:

Are you that boring that your dog would rather go to lunch with me than you?

 **From** , 凡凡:

_I am offended!_

_But he needs to know soon so he can start getting ready_

Yixing laughed a little at the other's reaction but decided that getting lunch wasn't so much of a bad option, seeing as Baekhyun was already two and a half hours late to their arranged starting time.

 **To** , 凡凡:

Tell me where and I'll be there

That one message was how Yixing found himself at an apartment building on a rainy but busy street, he pressed the buzzer for the number Yifan had given him when he was at the door and waited patiently for the lock on the front to click and let him in. He walked through the building, past the man who seemed to be a singular security guard and up to the elevator. His hand held his phone, his palms had gone a little sweaty with the fear that Baekhyun would call and ask where he was but the longer his phone remained silent the more he relaxed in the elevator.

He stepped out of the metal compartment when it had reached the floor he'd been told to get out at and looked down the short corridor to see if he could find the number of the apartment Yifan had given him. He could hear the yips of a small dog before he even got to the door and he smiled as he knocked on the wooden surface, there was barely any time before footsteps and the skittering of claws on hard flooring was heard on the other side.

Yixing was clutching to his phone by the time Yifan appeared on the other side of the opened door in just a t-shirt and jeans, the most casual thing Yixing had ever seen him in. He could see the poodle peeking around its owner's legs and wanted to coo over how wide his eyes looked as he stared up at the newcomer.

"Hey, come in," Yifan greeted, moving out of Yixing's way to invite him in and Yixing shuffled past the threshold, removing his wet jacket and shoes then sliding his feet into the slippers Yifan said were for guests.

The editor bent down to the floor when Rourou approached him, he held out his hand for the dog to smell it and only petted his head once he had moved even closer. Yixing could see Yifan down the hallway from where he was crouched, the tall male appeared to be in the kitchen and Yixing gave the poodle one last ruffle of his fur before standing to approach its owner.

"I thought we could stay here for lunch," Yifan looked over his shoulder to say and Yixing nodded. "The weather is still pretty bad and this seemed like a better idea than going out in the rain. I hope that's okay with you?"

"I planned to stay indoors all day, it's more than fine with me," Yixing nodded, slowly pulling out a stool that lined a breakfast bar to watch Yifan open and close different cupboards to pull out various cooking utensils.

It was then that he finally left his phone on the table, freeing up both his hands to lean on. He took his host's momentary distraction to look around the apartment and take in how it was probably twice the size of the one he shared with Baekhyun but didn't suggest that Yifan was excessively more wealthy than Yixing was. In fact, the place looked modest and the kind Yixing had wanted for Baekhyun and himself. It was modern but not cold, there was art almost everywhere. From paintings on the walls, sculptures on desks and the fixtures were utterly unique.

Everything was uniformly placed but that just spoke of neatness and not disuse, the apartment looked lived in with it's slightly marked doors and skirting boards. Yixing could see how often Yifan opened and closed his cupboards given that a few of them had lost their soft-close abilities that showed when they shut slightly harder than the rest.

"What are we having, chef?" Yixing asked once his eyes had made their way back around to Yifan and the man in question looked at the countertop in front of him.

"I was just going to make egg drop soup as I do my weekly shop on Mondays and I am reaching the dregs of what I have," Yifan admitted while looking mildly sheepish, which Yixing found slightly entertaining as he watched the other continue to chop up the different ingredients. "I would have done something a little more extravagant if this was planned."

"Egg drop soup sounds good to me," Yixing licked his lips at the end of his sentence to accent that he was okay with it and Yifan let out a short laugh.

"I do have some noodles somewhere here if you want me to cook them and we can have those, too?"

"That does sound a little tempting and like a throwback to my days in university," Yixing acknowledged quietly in an affirmative tone.

"It sounds like you were eating better than I was in school," Yifan huffed then went into a deep dialogue about how he would survive for days on dried curried noodles his mother would mail him from where she lived in Canada. Yixing found himself giggling at how Yifan made it out like it was some sort of war story. Yixing was surprised he didn't end it with a dramatic: _'_ _You don't know, man... You weren't there...'_

"Are you always this hyperbolic?"

"This is not hyperbole, Zhang Yixing, this is how it really happened," Yifan whined while he poured whisked eggs into the soup he was also stirring. "I weighed like 4 kilogrammes."

"What you did just then, that's the definition of hyperbole."

"Details, Mr Zhang, details," Yifan dismissed with a roll of his eyes. "And anyway, what would you know about writing devices?"

"Are we friends enough for me to throw a slipper at you?" Yixing asked deviously, already taking the soft item from his socked foot and he could see Yifan debating his head how he could respond without causing offence.

By the time he was ready to open his mouth, Yixing had already thrown the slipper and Yifan looked at him with wide eyes.

"How dare you... Abused like this in my own home... Rourou, attack, protect your baba," Yifan wailed and Yixing turned to look at how the dog was laid out across the floor and wasn't making any movement to do anything that Yifan had said. "Ugh, the disrespect."

"I don't think your dog cares," Yixing laughed in a dramatic stage whisper and the slipper he had lost was promptly thrown back at him.

"You shouldn't assault your chef while he's cooking food for you."

"Or what?"

"You'll be wearing it rather than eating it," Yifan warned and Yixing could only laugh at the sight of Yifan using a stirring spoon as a pointer like an overly dramatic mother.

Yixing didn't respond but smiled hard enough for his cheeks to ache, it was a strange feeling to feel so welcomed by somebody in a home he had never been into before but it was comfortable to sit and play around with Yifan like that. Yixing could tell that he had made a good friend in Yifan already. He liked how warm the other was and how he was almost dorky with how he acted, it revealed i how comfortable he was in his own home and how he seemed to show that off to Yixing.

They ate in silence once the noodles were made without anything being awkward, which was something Yixing hadn't experienced with somebody in a long time because there was something different about eating quietly alone because there was nobody to talk to and eating without speaking because nothing had to be said. There was the odd snuffling sound from the dog that made Yixing smile but nothing was said about it, as it was probably the norm for Yifan.

"Do you want me to wash the dishes?" Yixing offered through politeness, almost knowing that nobody ever agreed.

Yifan's face was deadpan when he flatly said: "Yes."

"Oh," Yixing's face dropped and three seconds passed before Yifan burst out into laughter that made his entire face scrunch up.

"I'm only kidding, I can put it all in the dishwasher in a minute," the taller reassured Yixing. "I only wanted to see how you reacted."

Yixing rolled his eyes and huffed out like a small child in silent protest of how he had been played by the other when usually he was the one with the more sarcastic and witty streak. It felt good, though, to be able to joke around. Yixing had almost missed how it felt in between Baekhyun's absence and the pity he received from his two closest friends.

The editor stood up from his stool and followed Yifan's lead of placing the dirtied items into the dishwasher.

"May I use your bathroom?"

"Uh, yeah," Yifan nodded and pointed to where the living room syphoned off into a short corridor, "Second door on the left."

Yixing followed the instructions when he came to an intersection of four doors, he guessed that at least two of them would be bedrooms and the other could be a store cupboard. Not being one to pry, Yixing didn't open any of the doors apart from the one he was signalled to.

After sorting himself out, Yixing washed his hands and wiped them on the towel that hung next to the sink. He headed out the door to see Yifan playing around with Rourou on the floor. Yifan looked up at him before pointing to the phone that Yixing had put on the table, "Somebody called _BuoXian_ has been calling you."

Yixing jogged over to where Yifan had gestured and clicked his phone to see the phone light up to display that he had three missed calls from _'伯賢',_ he slid the notification across and held the phone to his ear as the called dialled. It took four rings for Baekhyun to pick up.

"Baekhyun."

 _"Hyung, where are you?"_  The other asked, sounding as if he was somewhere busy.

Yixing glanced at Yifan for a few seconds before deciding that it was definitely better to proceed in Korean, "You weren't home, so I came out. Why? Where are you?"

_"You weren't at home when I got there and I came to Min-hyung and Dae's café to see if you were here but you aren't here either."_

Yixing gulped slightly and shifted his grip on his phone, he quickly looked around at Yifan who was staring up at him from the floor with Rourou.

"I ran into work, I thought I'd left my jacket behind yesterday," Yixing lied with his eyes clenched shut and his hands balled up. "I'm going home now, though."

"Oh _no, come here and we can get lunch together."_

"I already ate."

_"But Hyung said you hadn't been to the café today."_

"I got it from somewhere else."

 _"Oh, where? Maybe we can go one day,"_  Baekhyun still sounded cheerful but Yixing's gut felt like it was sinking lower in his body.

"I'll show you someday─"

 _"Hey, hyung,"_  Baekhyun shouted to Yixing's friends before Yixing could get the rest of his sentence out. _"_ _Xing-hyung is cheating on you with some other place."_

Yixing wasn't even swallowing anything and he started to choke on air as the word _cheating_ flowed into his ears, he ran his tongue over his lips nervously, "Baek."

_"Yeah?"_

"I'll come meet you as soon as I can, just stay put. I love you, okay?"

_"Okay, hurry hyung."_

The phone cut off and Yixing turned around fully to face a Yifan that was then standing.

"I need to go," Yixing muttered quietly.

"I didn't know you could speak Korean," Yifan smiled. "We clearly still have a lot to learn about each other."

Yifan stepped closer to Yixing and the editor watched him without blinking.

"Clearly," Yixing nodded, gulping again but with a dry throat that time.

"We should meet up for another lunch sometime?" Yifan offered, stopping just short of the breakfast bar, roughly a metre from Yixing and the shorter male relaxed. "I've enjoyed spending time with you."

"We should," Yixing agreed and Yifan smiled brightly, which only reminded him that he had to leave. "Message me when you're free and I'll see if I'm around."

"I will."

"Good." Yixing began walking, passing Yifan easily as he went to the door to change his shoes and put his jacket on. "I'll see you around, then."

"See you," Yifan opened the door and Yixing made his way out. The door closed quietly behind him and he let out a breath, he wasn't sure if something heavier and intense had changed within the last minute of their lunch together but Yixing’s mind was completely fogged up.

Just as he got to the elevator, Yifan walked out holding something in his hand. He held it out to Yixing and Yixing saw that it was an umbrella. He gave Yifan a questioning look and the tall man urged the item towards him. So he took it in his hands warily.

"You've got your jacket on," Yifan nodded towards Yixing's body, "and you said you went to your work looking for it but you're dry." Yixing looked dumbly at the other as the elevator dinged open, which made Yifan sigh. "You would not be dry if you had left your jacket at work like you said you did. So if you have an umbrella then that would make things a little more believable."

Yixing made an 'o' shape with his mouth and Yifan gave him a closed mouth smile as he turned to go back into his apartment. That was when Yixing realised that Yifan could understand the lie he'd spun his boyfriend, Yifan had understood Korean and suddenly Yixing felt a little bit sick as he began his journey out of the building.

 

◎◉◎

 

Yixing was relieved to not hear from Yifan for a few days, not when he wasn't sure if he felt guilty over the fact he'd lied in front of Yifan or the fact that he had lied to his boyfriend over something that was totally innocent. He was allowed to have friends, Yixing justified with himself, there wasn't wrong about going to have lunch at a friend's house. He hadn't done a single thing wrong in meeting and befriending Yifan and yet there was a constant tension within him that made him think otherwise.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Huh?" Yixing blinked and looked across at Minseok. The elder had sat opposite him while holding a coffee in his hands.

"You spaced out for like fifteen minutes. Dae called you because you've got to go back to work in five minutes and you've not touched any of your food. I wanted to see if you were okay."

"Oh right." Yixing sat up a little straighter. "I'm fine."

Minseok's brow creased worriedly, "You sure?"

"I'm a little tired but I'm sure."

"If you need somebody to talk to then we're here for you," Minseok tilted his head to the side in a way that Yixing had always thought was cute. "We love you."

Yixing smiled but it wasn't a happy one, needless guilt sat on his lips, "I know."

"Now eat up, don't add to our waste deficit," Minseok stood up and went over to Jongdae as Yixing’s stared at the clock ticking away his lunch hour. He ate as much as he could and hid his gaze from his friends’ to make his way over to the counter to pay them.

The editor managed to slink down the street while keeping his eyes scanning every inch for a small poodle or tall man. Yixing did not want to see Yifan just yet, he wasn’t ready for the questions that would come with that meeting and he didn’t want to try and explain himself away. Not because he didn’t want to give an explanation but it was more that he didn’t know what to say about it. He did not know why he lied but he did.

(Or maybe he did know why he had lied but wasn’t ready to admit that to himself yet.)

 

◎◉◎

 

With hours of thinking under his belt, and his mind still ignoring the alarm bells from his subconscious, Yixing decided that contacting Yifan wasn't going to be any problem. He had thought his jitters over starting a new friendship were rooted in the fact that Yixing found Yifan attractive. Not just handsome but attractive. And almost every relationship guide he had ever set his hands on all stated that human beings were going to find people other than their monogamous partner attractive, as a human's Limbic System doesn't just shut itself down to others while in a relationship. Everything in his light research had told him was that attraction was okay, mutual attraction less so and acting upon that attraction was wrong.

Yixing had messaged the art buyer on a Monday, he didn't assume that he would get a response but his luck was in when he woke up the next day with a reply from Yifan, who had been out of the city tending to one of his clients. They agreed to make up for lunch. It was to be something simple, something to become more friendly and learn about one another. Yixing had decided that he could allow him to have a friendship with Yifan.

However, within three weeks, Yixing and Yifan had a patterned schedule, barring the days that Yifan worked away. They met up for lunch on three of the five work days and Yixing went with Yifan to walk Rourou for two hours on Saturdays. Yixing couldn't help but think his attraction to Yifan increased with how comfortable they became touching one another.

Skinship, it seemed, was a strange phenomenon. Yixing was a touchy person in general; he loved to comfort people with physical contact, he loved to show his presence to somebody with a press of skin and he loved the warmth that could be shared from human to human. It was an instinctive and primitive need for companionship that was easily triggered in Yixing's mind. He was even closer to those he felt he was emotionally bonded with. He could latch and clutch onto somebody he felt himself around. And Yifan had unlocked that part of him far quicker than Yixing would ever be proud of.

It was merely days before Yixing felt like he could hold Yifan's arm as they walked down the street, much like he did with Jongdae, and he could rest his forehead on Yifan's shoulder as they sat next to each other like he did with Minseok. The taller male seemed to be the same with how he sometimes hooked his arm around Yixing's neck or held at his elbow like he had done from earlier on in their friendship. Yixing sometimes caught himself shying away from touches, not because he didn't want them but because they made his heart thud that little bit louder and inexplicably harder.

Their text messages went from infrequent to almost constant with short intervals in between conversations, Yixing's phone was almost always in his hand waiting for the vibration that told him he'd received yet another message. It was something his friends noted. They pointed out the fact that Yixing never tucked the device away into his shirt pockets anymore, it was always either in the easily accessible back pocket of his jeans or held closely.

He could see the weary way his friends cast glances at him, it was impossible to avoid but he didn't mind it so much. He enjoyed coveting Yifan's time, he liked knowing that he occupied the art buyer's mind, he liked knowing that Yifan was thinking of him. He didn't know exactly why but there was something addictive about that. There was something hooking about being appreciated and given attention at almost every waking moment. He could message Yifan if he randomly woke up at 3AM and know he would at least arise to a response, it was like clockwork. As soon as they saw the message, they replied. It was flowing, natural and Yixing hadn't ever had a friend quite like that before.

Yixing couldn't help but bite back a smile whenever he thought of Yifan, he would always push a blush from his cheeks and stop his hands from craving the touch of the other man’s body.

He didn’t understand it, there was something about Yifan that had evolved Yixing. There was a shift but it was valued over time, Yixing couldn’t describe it until he read it in a book.

 

_'We draw lines in the sand to partition ourselves between right and wrong. There are waves that crash over them and they can still be seen when those peaks withdraw from it. It is those who are the tides that change everything. They rub away your lines, they make it seem like the never existed. But that’s what you get when you draw those lines in sand and not concrete; you’re asking for change.'_

 

Yixing thought about that quote while he ate lunch one day, it was one of those times when Yifan didn’t have his dog and to was just the two of them sitting on a small patch of dry asphalt that was covered by an overhanging tree to shield them from the rain. It was a scene one would expect from teenagers, high schoolers brought together between classes to bond over a mutual hatred of some pointless lesson like woodwork, not two full grown adults. But it was refreshing, Yixing hadn’t acted like a teenager in years. He was always the adult, always the serious one that worried about saving for that dream apartment or whether there was milk stocked in the refrigerator. Yixing hadn’t sat quietly on a grey, rainy day with his shoulder resting against somebody else's while they ate their food in comfortable silence since he had graduated from high school.

Bit by bit, the tide was coming in and Yixing wasn’t running for the concrete.

 

◎◉◎

 

Whitewash walls were everywhere, the flooring was a pale wooden panelling and the lights were white and fluorescent. It wasn’t what he was there to see but it’s what he was overwhelmed by when he stepped in through the glass door. Almost immediately he was asked for his name, proof of identification and his invite. He wasn’t searched or spoken to after then until he made his way further in and a flute of champagne was thrust into his hands. He felt out of place, oddly abstract in the setting until he felt the already familiar wrap of a hand around his elbow.

“You’re here,” the other greeted and Yixing nodded, still holding his card invite in his hand. “I didn’t know if you would show.”

“Why would I not come?” Yifan’s look flattened in an instant and Yixing continued before the question could be answered. He didn’t want to be reminded, “You invited me, so I came.”

“I’m happy that you are. I wasn’t sure if this was your kind of thing but you sit and talk to me for hours about the books your editing, so I thought I would introduce you to what I do,” Yifan gestured around the room and only then did Yixing take in the fact that the whole space was filled with art. It hung on those whitewash walls, it stood on whitewash podiums and it projected into a darkened room that still had whitewash surfaces. “What’s your first impression?”

“It’s all so _white_.”

“It is rather glaring at first, I agree. But this is how art is presented these days, everything is white so as to not detract from the work. White makes colour bolder, it makes blacks deeper and draws the eye into everything else that is to be seen.”

“But why so harsh with it? Can’t it be a warmer colour? Like cream, maybe?”

“There are colours that clash with cream, it is very difficult to clash with white. It’s all about making everything seem clean and fresh. White is a timeless sign of purity and modernity in art.”

“I can see why people think your job is rather pompous,” Yixing hummed, sipping on the drink he was given and Yifan’s hand slipped from his arm to the back of his waist. The palm was a modest way up the younger’s back but it was comforting enough for Yixing to retain some of the minimal warmth the room was emitting.

Yifan led Yixing around to each of the pieces and gave him in-depth analysis of the work; why it was created (or commissioned), what the symbolism was and the impact it was supposed to have on people. Yixing tried to understand everything he was being told but some of the language didn’t compute in his mind. When Yifan would talk about an artist’s technique, it was like stepping into a new world.

He could see beyond the plain walls and look at something through Yifan’s eyes. He could hear how passionate the elder was when he talked about the pieces. That’s probably how he did his job, his love for art and everything signified in it translated in how he interacted with the work.

Like with anything, Yixing could see that Yifan had his likes and dislikes but that was probably because he felt like he knew the man. He could read his posture, his vocal tones and his eyes far more easily than somebody who would have been meeting him for a single evening. Not to mention the fact that Yifan had a genuine and honest aura about him. A person could look at him and trust him, it was a great trait for a sales person to have.

Yifan explained that the red dots next to the works were all the pieces that had been sold that night, it was a sign that the item had been purchased by the people in the room and Yixing let his eyes roll over the walls in search of the small stickers next to items. He was surprised by how many had been sold.

“They’re all sold by you?” Yixing queried.

“Not just me, my team too,” Yifan pointed some people out and Yixing could see how they were different to those browsing through the pieces. They were rotating the room like clockwork, speaking with unending sincerity and enthusiasm. Yixing found it both exciting and nauseating.

“You have a team?”

“Yeah, we tend to work together. Especially on events like this. We all have our specialisms but everybody tends to be well-rounded in knowledge of technique and provenance, as we need to be able to sell or haggle for anything given to us and that means that you have to be able to talk about the piece in question.”

“What’s your specialist area?”

“I don’t really have one, my mother is an artist. I was raised around all of this, all I really know is art,” Yifan took a sip of the drink he had hung in his free hand and Yixing pressed himself a little closer to Yifan’s side.

“What does your mother make?” Yixing peered up at the tall man who looked down at him in return.

“Whatever she wants. She used watercolours when I was a kid but she evolves, the world is her muse and if she feels like finding a work of art in a lump of clay then that’s what she does. She’s passionate about what she creates, even if she doesn’t quite know where any of it is leading.”

“Do you inherit her talents?” Yixing hooked his arm around Yifan’s arm, being the one to hold the other closer that time.

“No, I did not,” Yifan laughed out, it was loud and it rang through the gallery, turning heads and making people scowl as it cut through the serene setting. “She says I’m more like my father, I’m a little tamer with my creativity than she is but I still like to doodle, take photographs and build things.”

“You don’t have to be good at art to enjoy it,” Yixing hummed gently, fixing his gaze on the painting in front of him.

“Only those who are talented in the arts ever say that.”

“But it’s the truth.”

Yixing couldn’t see it but he was certain that Yifan was smiling, “It probably is.”

“It’s a shame you didn’t inherit her abilities but, from what you’ve said about her, you’ve got that fiery passion that she has within you. Sometimes you only need passion and a love for something to continue, two feelings that often go hand-in-hand.”

“Wise words, Mister Zhang,” Yifan gulped down the rest of his drink and Yixing watched as the taller male switched his alcohol to the orange juice they were providing for those who didn’t drink. It didn’t baffle Yixing, as he knew Yifan was probably still working and shouldn’t drink, yet that made Yixing stop drinking for the evening, too. He looked didn’t want to embarrass Yifan for getting drunk nor did he want to turn up at home inebriated.

Yixing thought carefully over the fact that he had told Baekhyun that he would be working late that night, that he would get home as soon as he could and that meant not getting drunk. He was barely coherent when he was sober, he could not get caught up in a lie he didn’t even have to tell.

He veered past Yifan and picked one of the drinks before tucking himself back away against the tall male, it was a little comforting to know that Yifan was there by his side because he’d never been to an event of that type.

Yixing hadn’t known what to expect and that had meant a clog in his anxiety filter. He had feared an auction, one he would accidentally enter and be put in for some ridiculous amount of money that he didn’t have. Yifan had told him over and over that there was nothing to work about, the gallery openings were a quiet and docile event, there would be no room for an auctioneer just yet.

Yixing had sighed out in relief but that didn’t do anything to stop the panic, he had no idea what to expect from the people around. A large part of him was thankful that none of Baekhyun’s friends turn up at gallery events. Yixing felt safe like Yifan was a cocoon.

Yixing lingered around until the other guests of the show left and Yifan had directed his staff to know what to do as they packed away, a few of the artists popped in to see how their work had sold and Yixing saw many red dots go noticed by searching eyes. Nevertheless, his focus remained on Yifan's form as the older male moved with concentrated purpose. Yixing could see the passion there but there was a driven and firm head on Yifan's shoulders when he was working.

Yixing found his stomach simmering at the sight.

When it was time to leave, Yixing's hand instantly latched onto Yifan's as they walked through the dark streets with their thick clothing rustling against each other's bodies. It had grown so familiar for Yixing. A hand engulfing his, a tall shoulder to lean on when the wind whistled across his cheeks and a person to smile happily up at. It felt like something more was forming, Yixing sensed that the thread-thin line caution laid out was almost upon him.

Yifan guided him, he drew them through the city with a knowledge Yixing didn't have and the editor smiled when the park came into view. There was nobody else entering on the pathway, the only things that could be heard were the odd swishing of leaves that had fallen on the ground to welcome winter. He didn't question it as Yifan ushered him to one of the benches. It easily accommodated the both of them but their thighs still pressed together when they sat down.

Yixing wasn’t sure when something flickered and changed the tension between them. Yifan’s fingers were toying with Yixing’s far smaller ones, making him feel more petite than he normally did but he didn’t hate that reaction. It was enough to make him feel completely surrounded by Yifan, his fingers were a scaled down version of everything between them and Yixing couldn’t help licking his lips just a little.

His gaze, fixed and focused on Yifan, didn’t leave the taller’s eyes as they sat side by side on the bench in the deserted park. Nobody was around to see them, the streetlights cast a warm, orange glow a short way down the path and Yixing was transfixed by how golden Yixing’s eyes looked.

The fingers in Yixing’s hands moved away and skittered up his neck like skimming stones across a lake, he shuddered at the touch but didn’t flinch away. The voice in his head that told him not to let Yifan so close was drowned out by the part that told him to get nearer to the other. So when Yifan’s long fingers wrapped around his jaw, he let himself be drawn closer and closer until he could no longer focus on the shimmering speckles in Yifan’s eyes. He could feel the elder’s breath on his cheek, the inches between them were almost solid with anticipation and Yixing’s hands moved to rest on Yifan’s arms.

He expected his brain to work by instant reaction and push the man who wasn’t his boyfriend away but it was purely for balance as if he knew that what was to come would throw him off-centre.

Yifan’s face came closer, his lips brushed Yixing’s and the editor’s eyes fluttered closed. Yixing’s body was wrought with feelings that smouldered and fermented under his skin. Everything told him that he _wanted_ Yifan’s lips to press down harder, that he needed to draw the elder’s exhales into his mouth and that he needed to push his body until only skin separated them.

The tall man with the intense stare had triggered Yixing’s primal need for contact and that was only sated when Yifan concluded that Yixing would not be pulling away from him. The elder closed the millimetres of space between them. Their lips collided like feathers landing on paper; a slow drifting act of natural gravity. Yixing couldn't see anything but darkness with his eyes close but that only spurred him on to move his lips against Yifan's. They fit together as their lips massaged and ran over each other like paintbrushes on a canvas. Yixing couldn't think of words or a moment that could summarise everything he felt in those fleeting moments.

It was a chain reaction from then, there was no tongue but Yixing held tighter to Yifan's arms and Yifan's hand held his jaw delicately enough that Yixing felt like wet clay ready to be moulded and fashioned into something beautiful. His entire body thrummed with electricity. It wasn't the shocking kind, it was a steady current that his heart controlled and the voltage increased with every small puff of Yifan's breath that he felt on the warm flesh of his lips.

He wanted to open his eyes, to experience the moment with every sense but his mind told him that he shouldn't do so. It could make everything real. It could make the lapse in Yixing's fidelity something real.

That was when he pushed Yifan away with as much force as he could, he heard the elder make a shocked squeaking noise and Yixing still didn't let his eyes open, he didn't want to take in the expression of Yifan's face and he held his fingers to his own mouth. He could feel the warmth of tears under his eyelids, he knew it wouldn't be long before they spilt out over his cheeks and he did not want Yifan to see that. He didn't want anybody to see that.

"Yixing," he heard Yifan whisper, he sounded far away and Yixing couldn't blame him for the movement.

"I think you should go," Yixing croaked, his voice was far rawer than he wanted it to sound, it showed just how much the kiss impacted Yixing.

"Yixing," Yifan's hand was on his jaw again.

"You should leave me alone. I didn't want this to happen."

"You didn't push me away, I gave you enough time to push me away."

"I know you did but _this_ wasn't supposed to happen between us," Yixing's words were a whisper, his hands were balled up in his lap and there was nothing he could do to stop the sob that left his mouth.

"Why not?"

Yixing's brows furrowed deeply and he clenched his eyes tighter together, "I have a boyfriend."

"So it's not because you don't want this? It's not because you don't feel the same."

"I have a _boyfriend,_  Yifan."

"One that you lie to when you meet up with me," Yifan bit out in Korean and Yixing bowed his head, that singular sentence was enough to let the ashamed part of his brain bloom. "If this wasn't what you wanted then I wouldn't be a secret to be kept."

"I was wrong to do that," Yixing turned his body away from Yifan, curling in on himself. He wanted to go to his bed already. "None of this should have happened, I already regret everything."

Yifan didn't respond, no matter how long Yixing waited for something to be said back to him but there was nothing but silence around him as he finally opened his eyes. Yifan was nowhere in sight, Yixing was left alone in the dark. No matter how much he wanted to go to bed, he didn't want to go back to that apartment. He didn't think it would be right to get back into the bed he shared with his boyfriend with the taste of another man on his lips. Yixing knew everything he'd done was wrong, the nagging part of his brain told him that the pain he was feeling was entirely deserved. He had brought everything upon himself.

 _He_ was the one with the boyfriend, _he_ was the one who didn't push Yifan away and _he_ was the one who didn't do anything to stop what─ _deep down_ ─he knew was happening.

 

◎◉◎

 

Yixing's thumb hovered over the ' _Delete Contact'_ option on his phone as he stared at Yifan's details, he'd done that several times as a week passed since the art buyer had kissed him. He knew he shouldn’t have done it, there was a certainty in the loyalty he should have been showing Baekhyun but that seemed redundant as Yixing considered how happy he had been at Yifan's side.

It was for the best, he told himself.

He didn't believe those words.

His focus at work strayed, his ability to separate himself from the texts he was reading and reality became harder as he lost to his imagination. The editor stopped eating his lunch in and around the park, he stuck to the indoors of Jongdae and Minseok's café where he knew he was safe from the tall, raven-haired man he was actively avoiding.

But, like with anything, the backlash was felt easily. The faults, the swelling of his seclusion and the wish to be surrounded by a large body. What he'd had with Yifan wasn't enough. He should not have wanted more, he couldn't work out why he craved more when he had gone so long before without it. It deadened him.

Yixing felt like he was missing a part of himself. A sliver of his being that Baekhyun should have own the entirety of; it was wrong. It was too much all at once. It was confusing, almost as if he couldn't stretch himself without buckling under the pressure and it was somehow harder to be happy than it had been prior to meeting Yifan.

Nothing was clear in his head, there was no moment of clarity and there wasn't enough for himself. His loneliness concentrated within him and tangled him up in a state of almost constant sadness that a part of him thought he deserved and another that viewed the opposite.

It was a push and pull of emotions as he pressed the home button on his phone, not clearing Yifan's contact but taking it from view before sliding the device into his pocket. He wanted there to be something that made everything clearer before he said too much or did too much. Yixing worried, he fretted and he let himself wallow in the refrain of his own actions.

He knew he needed to find the route of his intentions before he did anything more but the more willing sections of his mind wanted to shut off his ability to think. He wanted to run by instinct, to follow his gut and that primitive subconscious terrified him. It was impulsive and he knew there was only so much time before his defences against himself crumbled down.

 


	2. Second

Lips numbed from continual nibbling had turned a sharp red on Yixing's face but that didn't stop him from abusing the sensitive flesh. He felt himself spiralling, his loneliness had hit him harder than it had before and a voice told him that it was self-inflicted solitude. He was the island that had drifted.

He checked his phone every moment of the hours he'd spent apart from Yifan, he felt phantom vibrations of messages then felt the lingering disappointment when the screen appeared blank.

The guilt that gnawed away at him wasn't from the fact he'd kissed a man who wasn't his boyfriend, it was the fact he'd cut Yifan out of his life suddenly after they had grown so close. He knew that wasn't right. Even when he sat across from Baekhyun, even when they shared a bed, all Yixing could think about was how he'd felt when those lips connected with his own. His reaction wasn't one he would normally have. He felt a dizziness throughout his body, it vibrated everywhere but he felt centred like he was spinning on an axis. The phenomenon on its own was unique. It was as if he'd evolved, intensified.

That's what had him on the subway, had him on the street and had him entering an apartment complex that wasn't his own.

Yixing didn't think as Yifan's apartment door flung itself open to reveal the tall male, he acted upon instinct holding the elder by the jaw to bring their lips together and he didn't have to wait too long before his kiss was returned. It was different than their first, it fed a heat that had slowly grown in size in Yixing's body and only served to fan the flames rather than extinguish them. He could hear a white noise that dulled down to nothing as his lips parted, a tongue instantly slipped in past them and he couldn't remember when he'd last properly tasted something so unique.

Yifan, Yixing noted, smelled like lavender but tasted like something that could have anybody addicted. There was a subtle spice on Yifan's lips, it tingled on Yixing's tongue and filtered into his mouth in a steady flow. Yifan's hands crept around to the sides of his hips and Yixing fixated on the way the other's large fingers pressed in a tight grip there, it made him feel grounded by his feet but his head was somewhere else entirely. Yixing could sense the want, raw and sensitive, in Yifan's kisses and all he could do was return that. It was wrong. It should have felt wrong.

And yet, everything about how it felt, how Yifan tasted and how their bodies moved closer together screamed to Yixing that he was _right, right, right._ Something that had been impulsive in nature became purposeful and Yixing was pulled almost forcefully into the other's apartment. He had his shoes on as he was guided halfway down the hallway then pushed up against the wall with a strength Yixing didn't know that Yifan had. His hands moved up and around to twist in Yifan's hair, crushing them together and he could barely stop the meek whine that left his throat. He was falling apart from the lips of another man and all his fingers did was grip tighter, his lips moved zealously and his head tilted to accommodate the taller's size. It didn't matter that all of his muscles had begun to ache as Yifan's tongue fought almost ferociously with his nor did it matter how much he wanted what was happening.

He held his head to the side with a craned neck as his back arched, Yifan's lips took the hint and slipped down his cheek and began their descent down his neck. Yixing took in a deep breath before sighing out an almost inaudible, "No marks."

Yifan pulled back slowly as if he was withdrawing and Yixing wanted the hands in the other's locks to bring them back together. He didn't. He let the elder scrutinise him, staring him dead in the eyes before reading what Yixing couldn't bring himself to say aloud. They were forbidden. That may have been so; they were still happening.

Yifan nodded shortly almost curtly before taking Yixing's lips in his again, suffocating anything else Yixing would not say and the tall male understood. The elder seemed to want him enough to not care, to need the taste of Yixing's mouth as much as Yixing needed his and the editor couldn't help but cave as Yifan's mouth assaulted his once more, giving him the pleasure of attention and attraction.

 

◎◉◎

 

Yixing grabbed his laptop from the table to pull it onto his legs, it felt cold against his skin but he knew that would change as he powered it up. His writer had sent him numerous drafts as the days went by and he felt like he was drowning in documents and revisions, not to mention the lack of space on his hard drive was biting him like a wound up dog. Still, Yifan's apartment had grown to be the best place to edit. The older male was quiet as he tapped away on his own keyboard and took phone calls in his bedroom, it felt like an informal workspace that Yixing could drift in and out of before he left to go home.

Lunch time was a far more general thing than it was before when they got to choose when to leave themselves, Yixing not working in his office gave them fewer restrictions to think about and they were habitually prompted to eat when Rourou began to paw at either human. The dog had become a foot warmer for Yixing when Yifan wasn't in the room and the puppy had warmed up to him even more as the days turned into weeks that he spent hanging around the older man's apartment.

There were even days that Yixing would find his mouth aching from kissing Yifan too much. Sometimes his arms would ache for hours because they'd been wrapped around the taller's neck. It wasn't rare for his lips to still tingle when he slipped into the bed in his own apartment at night.

Yixing knew he shouldn't let himself slip asunder around Yifan but he couldn't resist it. His brain switched off when he was with the art buyer, he ran wholly on appeal and Yifan was always appealing to him. Only Yixing felt weighted down by his actions when he saw his boyfriend; Baekhyun's smile felt like a thousand pincers around his heart and barbed wire on his spine.

And yet, Yifan's smile unbound Yixing, he was unravelled.

Yifan shouldn't have been his to touch, their lips were not supposed to belong together but Yixing couldn't call Yifan his own. Not when he shouldn't have been in a position to take another person into his heart. But he felt the slack in his ropes whenever he sat at Yifan's breakfast bar to ask the elder how he slept when he would turn up in the mornings. He felt a looseness around his heart when Yifan's eyes met his from the other end of the couch. Yixing felt every caress, kiss and lick that should not have been his to indulge in.

It was too easy to feel like he did with Yifan. The editor could let everything go when Yifan was there to make him forget in the slow hours they were immersed in most days.

“Do you know where the ginger is?” Yifan inquired, his hands shuffled through the bowl he kept the garlic in that caught Yixing’s attention from the e-mails he scrolled through.

“You put it in with the spring onions when you unloaded the groceries,” Yixing reminded him and Yifan made a delighted sound in his throat. “There it is.”

Yixing observed Yifan from the chair. His long, thin legs were clad in sweatpants, his torso was wrapped up in an oversized sweater and his slippers shuffled on the floor. He looked gentle. He was gentle. The room brightened as Yifan turned to him with a smile, a silent _thank you._

“What are you doing?”

“Watching you,” Yixing pressed his chin into his hand, half covering his smiling tender expression.

“Why?” Yifan moved his head to tend to what was on the counter in front of him.

“It’s nice,” Yixing supplied but he could think of a million different adjectives.

Yifan knew that. " _Nice_? Mr Editor?”

“Bewitching, enthralling, dazzling, spellbinding, enchanting, magnetising, enamouring,” Yixing whittled of instantly. Yifan tensed under his shirt.

“I’m inveigled,” the tall male muttered.

 _I’m coming undone_ , Yixing thought but couldn’t say out loud.

 

◎◉◎

 

The days without Yifan hung around Yixing's neck like dead weight. Yifan had to travel out of town every so often and that alternate world Yixing had built around them shattered with the mere touch of Baekhyun's body beside his own at night.

Yifan was his own but Yixing wasn't.

Baekhyun still left him stranded on every other meeting, plans went unfulfilled and conversations weren't engaged in when they were something to be had. Yixing didn't know what to believe, he felt his mind running and jumping into every situation. Each minute could be interpreted in a different way, there was always another avenue for him to explore and Yixing could feel himself losing to his attempts at trying.

He didn't know what he could choose to give in and get out. He was sure he loved Baekhyun but there shouldn't have been room for somebody else in his mind if that feeling ran deep enough. Whenever he found himself drawing close to a conclusion he felt his heart rise up then crash, he didn't want to be without Yifan either.

His wires were tangled, his nerves were frayed and his mind was worn to an empty slate.

The editor needed to figure who made him feel the most alive, who he found himself devoting to more and he was sure that would show him the answer.

Yixing had always been told that love conquered all but he found himself twisted up in a war of right and wrong because of that singular sensation. Love was only easy when there was only one outcome but Yixing had two when he knew he couldn't have both.

 

◎◉◎

 

Yifan could see Yixing getting ready in the corner of his eye, he hated how the younger stuck in his periphery and wouldn't leave it. The buyer tried to focus on his work and not watch how Yixing toyed with his hair, bit his lip to centre his attention onto his laptop screen and not stare at the way Yixing was making himself look somehow more beautiful than normal. It made Yifan's heart thunder as much as it hurt. He wanted to be the one Yixing tried so hard for.

It was the fourth time Yixing had restyled his hair that Yifan's patience with the entire thing snapped, "Do you have to do that _here?"_

Yixing looked at him through the mirror, Yifan could see his own reflection in the surface from where he was on the bed and how shocked Yixing looked sat in front of the reflective glass. There was a look of what appeared to be guilt on Yixing's features but Yifan swallowed that down, he didn't want to know why Yixing felt guilty. Or who he felt guilty for.

"I'm sorry," Yixing muttered as he stood, the younger left the bedroom and Yifan heard the bathroom light across the hall turn on. The dog, who had been snuggled up against Yifan's leg on the small blanket there followed Yixing out of the room and he closed his eyes to set his head back against the headboard. He shut his laptop without looking at it and pushed it aside, he knew he wouldn't get anything done with his emotions running haywire.

He wanted to be selfish, to beg Yixing not to leave and to run through their normal routine together. He wanted to keep Yixing by his side. He didn't want to be followed by thoughts of Yixing laughing giddily and happily with another man, he didn't want to think about how Yixing's lips would be claimed by somebody else or how Yixing's body, one he'd never fully seen or touched, would probably be given to somebody who wasn't Yifan.

But he knew he couldn't. _He_ was the one who didn't have any claim over Yixing. _He_ was the one who was left behind to be alone. _He_ was the one who could only take what he was given.

There was that residual feeling of self-loathing he felt when he thought about what they were doing. Yixing was taken, Yifan should have resisted his want for the other and he should have respected the boundaries.

Yifan had never considered being that. The _other_ man, that was. He had always championed monogamy over all, prided himself in never wanting to be the one to hurt somebody else but he'd backtracked on almost every warning his morals gave out in order to have his moments with Yixing.

Yifan's eyes flickered when there was a light knock on his door frame, signalling Yixing's presence and he looked at the younger. They didn't meet eyes. Yixing was staring too intently at the floor with Rourou behind his leg and the silence sank over them until Yixing cleared his throat. "I should probably go now. I can’t be late to my own anniversary."

"Okay," Yifan nodded, one of his hands fisted at his side as his annoyance pooled there.

"I'll see you─" Yixing cut himself off as he thought about what he was going to say next, "─I'll see you when I see you."

Yifan nodded and Yixing bowed out of the doorway then out of the apartment, the dog following him part of the way before returning back to Yifan's side on the bed and he leant forward to pull the small animal onto his lap. He'd read somewhere that petting a dog could help relieve stress or anxiety, he wasn't exactly sure of which and hoped that would help him feel better. But he didn't think that it would help with the film of guilt that laced his stomach or the frustration that collected like lactic acid in his muscles. He hated the idea that he was falling for somebody who wasn't exclusively his or that didn't even reciprocate how he felt.

The art buyer was almost certain that he was just a replacement of some sort, that he was where Yixing could expend the energy he couldn't give to his boyfriend and that always made Yifan feel sick. He wondered what his mother would think if she knew he was in a complicated situation with a taken man, he didn't think he could ever tell her that truth and not feel like she'd have something to unload onto him about it. Yifan knew she would never accept that he had got himself into such a situation in the first place, she would scold him and possibly cry because she had not raised him to act like that. He didn't want to be a disappointment to his mother but he could not suppress that part of him that told him that Yixing was something golden.

He stood up from his bed and decided upon cleaning the apartment to take his mind off things, he didn't want to imagine how excited Yixing probably was to meet up with his boyfriend or what they would do when they were together. Yifan wanted to numb himself to what he was thinking about, to what made his skin burn and he took a few deep breaths before plucking cleaning products out from beneath his kitchen sink.

It wasn't a task he'd thought through. Not when Yixing's belongings were mingled in with his own as if he lived there. He had to put them all to one side in a small pile, from there he only had to deal with his own possessions and he breathed out a sigh when he could start polishing things. He could work his body by cleaning up around himself, using as much force as he could without breaking or damaging anything.

Cleaning wasn't something he found relaxing on a normal day but he was happy to expend the energy he needed to.

Cooking, that was what Yifan did to relax and he decided that an early dinner would be a good place to start if he was going to feel better about anything. A shower could come after that. He could wash away everything else and feel clean before he headed under his sheets to pine the night away. Yifan had already set himself up to not sleep for too long while Yixing was out with his boyfriend.

It was weird, Yixing almost always messaged Yifan when he was at his apartment with his boyfriend but he knew Yixing wouldn't have his phone out while he was on a date, that wasn't like the younger to do something like that. Yixing was the kind to give his full attention to whoever he was with at that time and that's probably why he found it so easy to fall for the taken man. Yifan hadn't felt appreciated in such a long time but Yixing was effortless in his interest yet it was then things started changing. Yixing had lied to his boyfriend about where he was when he was with Yifan and he didn't know how many times those lies had been given.

That was the sign that told Yifan that what they had wasn't what it should have been. That had been what made Yifan masochistically hopeful. Before he knew it, he was in too deep to not want Yixing. He felt the urge to covet the editor, to wrap him up in the little world they had in Yifan's apartment but Yixing always left. Yifan would watch Yixing as he went, biting his tongue to say something to stop the other from leaving but he never had the right, nor the confidence in what Yixing felt for him, to stop anything that happened.

Yifan warmed up some leftovers he had in his fridge, it wasn't the kind of cooking that soothed him the most but he needed his night to be done quickly. If he could go to sleep then he could not think about Yixing being with his boyfriend and all the images it brought. Yifan especially hated the idea of Yixing tasting differently when they kissed, that there would be a hint of something else when their lips met that would remind Yifan that he wasn't the one who had Yixing on his own.

Rourou barked as the microwave beeped a few minutes later and Yifan stared down at the whining dog. He wondered if the Rourou knew, if he could sense somebody else on Yixing or if he could tell that Yifan was affectionate towards Yixing. He thought about if the dog could speak, what would he have to say to Yifan about his choice in semi-romantic partner. Yifan mulled over if Rourou would approve of the situation or if he would just want Yifan to be happy.

The dog barking again brought him back to reality and he shook his head, Rourou didn't understand human concepts and the poodle loved anybody who would rub his belly or feed him.

Yifan took his dinner out of the microwave and scarfed it down when it was cool enough to do so. It tasted a little too peppery but he didn't mind that so much, he always thought more positively when he had a full stomach. A primitive kind of contentedness that he could let himself bask in for a whole of three minutes before he was reminded of the fact that he was eating alone and Yixing wouldn't be, he'd have the company of somebody who would always come before Yifan.

The tall male sighed as he placed his used utensils in the sink and made his way to the living area to lay down flat to the sofa. He was impatient and wanted Monday to crawl around sooner, just so he could see Yixing. Yifan checked his phone and could only watch as the screen went back to black without any messages from Yixing. He hadn't quite felt so lonely before, not even when he lived alone without Rourou, he knew what it was like to share a space with somebody and that knowledge glued itself to his mind.

Yifan had clicked his phone's screen on eight times and was only interrupted by a soft knock on the door. He couldn't be bothered to answer it, he wanted to wallow in his self-pity and not have that interrupted by anybody. If he was going to have a bad weekend then he wanted to spend it alone.

The fourth round of knocks had Yifan climbing off the sofa to ward the person off. It was no surprise that Rourou was waiting by the door, he was always curious of who would be entering their home and shuffled away when Yifan opened the door.

He was shocked to see Yixing there with his arms around his body like he was feeling vulnerable or cold, maybe even both. Yifan didn't speak as he moved to allow the younger into his apartment and Yixing took his shoes off before shuffling across the flooring to get to where Yifan had been lying moments before. Yifan followed him quietly, observing how Yixing looked like he was thinking but moved over to him when his arms opened and his eyes looked up expectantly. The taller knew that face, it was the one Yixing wore when Baekhyun had done something to upset or disrupt him. Yifan always drew him in close then, even though it felt somewhat empty because he couldn't get everything he wanted from the younger and he was picking the pieces up from a mistake that wasn't even his own.

That never stopped him from crawling onto the sofa and taking Yixing into his arms, that was always a comfort to feel for himself and his chest swelled a little more with that masochistic hope when Yixing sucked in a long breath of his scent from his shirt. Yixing held Yifan back, nuzzling in to find comfort and Yifan couldn't help but want to coo at the other for having such cute tendencies.

"What's wrong?" He mumbled into Yixing's hair, loosening his grip until Yixing looked up at him.

"I think he stood me up," Yixing muttered and Yifan kissed his forehead. It hurt to hear that Yifan was the second resort to the other but it hurt more to see how Yixing had reacted to it. "I waited for nearly an hour but he didn't show. It’s our anniversary and he didn’t even come."

"I'm sorry," Yifan sighed. He wanted to mean it but he couldn't if that meant that he was the one the younger was with at that moment.

"I don't know why I went. He's always doing stuff like this, I just wanted today for things to be normal and to talk to him."

Yifan closed his eyes while he bit the insides of his cheeks. The words hurt, they chipped into his chest and clenched around his heart as he heard them. There was no mistaking how awful it made him feel, how he wished that Yixing could see that _he_ was the one who was there for him, always waiting until he got the call to go to his side. But he didn't, he left it as Yixing got comfortable on his body.

"You know, I had a feeling I should have stayed here with you. I'm always happy when I'm here with you," Yifan could hear the wariness in Yixing's confession like he was revealing a large secret and Yifan knew that the younger was. It helped to dull the ache in his chest and when Yixing looked up at him through his lashes, Yifan knew that Yixing had told the truth. He was happy when he was around Yifan.

"Did you eat?" The older changed the subject in hopes of quashing some of the negativity.

Yixing shook his head, "No."

"Okay, want to cook something?"

"Together?" Yixing looked almost hopeful, as far as Yifan's eyes could see.

"I already ate but yeah, it will be good for you."

They both stood up, Yifan ignored that Yixing had threaded their fingers together and was tugging him in through to the kitchen. He watched as Yixing released his hand and foraged around in all the right places for certain things and Yifan began to follow the instructions the other gave him.

They messed around, Yifan threw the chunks of green pepper that he hated at Yixing and the editor would pretend to get annoyed only to laugh a few seconds later. They were constantly in each other's spaces and their fingers would hook together if they brushed one another. It was those things that Yifan let Yixing in for, it was for that bubbling feeling inside him that was like molten happiness.

Yifan could not shake how beautiful Yixing looked with his hair styled to perfection, his skin lightly patted down with a sheer coverage foundation and his eyes accented gently with black kohl. He didn't know how anybody could stand such a beautiful person up, how he could almost be left completely alone by somebody when he looked like he just wanted to be adored. So Yifan smiled at him when he could, his own happiness increasing as Yixing's grins grew wider until his dimple was almost fully eclipsed by his cheeks.

The elder kissed him then with his hands on his cheeks, eyes closed and Yixing's smile under his lips. It wasn't viable to kiss with Yixing smiling so madly but Yifan had to do it, he had to put himself right there as Yixing's mood lifted from vulnerable to a more joyful one.

He watched Yixing eat once the food was done, sometimes he fed Yixing when the younger pouted at Yifan enough. It was like a natural scene for Yifan, nothing felt forced or false and bearing witness to the darkness in Yixing's eyes disappearing with every passing minute was more than worth it. Yifan cleaned the dishes as Yixing watched him from the table, he could feel the warmth of the stare on his body and continually tried to make Yixing laugh with as many corny jokes as his brain produced.

Yifan knew their evening was going to end soon, Yixing never stayed for long after eating but Yixing made himself comfortable on the sofa pretty quickly with Rourou half on his lap. Yifan was struck by how well suited Yixing appeared to be sat there, how at _home_ everything looked and he could feel that doubtful part of himself begin to press forward as he took his seat next to the two beings on his plush seating.

Yixing moulded his body to Yifan's side and leant up against him almost immediately, they shared the quiet like that when Yixing turned the television on to display the news. There were reports of broken down subway trains and busy stations, which neither of them took much note of before Yixing changed the channel with a press of a button. There was a film showing, a cartoon of some sort and Yixing nestled in until his head was over Yifan's heart and his arm was no longer in the poodle's fur but around Yifan's waist. It was warm and delightful, it spread all kinds of feelings through the elder and he was sure Yixing could hear how hard Yifan's heart was working because of their close proximity.

Yifan's arm was around Yixing's shoulders, which brought the other's head in line with his lips and he pressed numerous kisses into Yixing's hair. He could feel how the editor was completely relaxed against him and almost slumped down on Yifan's body like he had been drained of all his energy but in the satisfying way that meant for well-deserved rest.

The elder didn't want to broach the subject of Yixing going back to his apartment but as the film ended and Yixing made no sign of moving, Yifan was left wondering if the other had fallen asleep. As he peeked a look down at Yixing, he could see the younger staring almost blankly to nowhere and he knew he had to ask the question, "When are you going home?"

Yixing didn't respond at first, as he made no move to stand and Yifan nudged his shoulder lightly.

"Can I stay here for the night?" Yixing glanced up at Yifan. "You know, stay with you."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Yixing," Yifan's hands traced a line down the younger's cheek.

"But I want to, and it's not because of what happened tonight. I want to be here with you to know what it feels like to sleep next to you and wake up beside you."

Yifan couldn't argue with that, he had spent weeks wondering what Yixing would look like sleeping amongst his sheets, whether or not Yixing's mouth fell open as he slept or if he made any noises that Yifan could coo over. He wanted to have Yixing in his bed, in his arms, for just a night to know what it felt like, too. Yifan gazed at Yixing for a long while, calculating if heeding the younger's request would be a good idea but a large part of him saw no issue in allowing Yixing to stay the night.

The practical but enamoured half of him said that Yixing might not want to go back to the place he shared with the person he was stood up by. The pragmatic part of him said that Yixing had spent hours in the daytime there, often sat on Yifan's bed for hours under or on top of the duvet, what difference did it make if he was underneath the sheets and unconscious for a few hours?

However, that burning part of him, that craving to touch and claim Yixing fired up like an asteroid. Yifan had thought of Yixing before, he would be lying if he said he hadn't ever considered Yixing to be physically desirable as well as emotionally. He was perfectly proportioned, his hands always moved with purpose whenever the two of them kissed and he'd seen lust swirling in Yixing's eyes before. He had seen them hooded, dark and enticing.

Yifan had seen how Yixing's lips looked abused and swollen with blood to turn them a deep shade of red. He could never focus on anything but the younger's mouth when that happened, he always wondered if they would turn a rich tone of purple if he bit and tugged at the tender flesh between his teeth. He wondered if Yixing would like that. The taller knew he would have to get a grasp on himself before delving into bed with Yixing, especially if the younger was hinting at only wanting to sleep.

Yifan continued contemplating as Yixing rose up to his feet and pressed a light kiss to Yifan's lips, it knocked his thoughts away and brought him back into the room where Yixing really was. Yifan touched his jaw gently while Yixing tugged him up to his feet, he closed his eyes and took in the entire moment as best as he could with just the sense of touch on his mouth and the scent of Yixing's ever present chocolate scented aura.

The warmth under Yifan's fingers had gently started to become familiar, the way in which Yixing's mandible curved and jutted out from his neck was a delight to feel while they kissed it, it always meant that Yifan could feel Yixing's face moving with the inches he had to move to kiss the elder. It drove Yifan insane to not be able to suck marks into that strong jawline and litter them down his throat, across his sternum and down to his navel.

Yixing withdrew his lips and smiled widely up at Yifan, which only served to blind the elder more than he ever expected that he could be in the waning light around them. There was a magical sense that nothing could stop Yifan from feeling how he did when Yixing stood before him like that, only looking at him and only smiling at him. Yifan felt a grand sense of pride to be the reason behind why those lips stretched, that dimple dented and those eyes curved upwards to show authentic joy.

"Does this mean I can stay?" Yixing bit his lip and Yifan couldn't have stopped his eyes from following it even if he had tried.

"You can stay," Yifan nodded and Yixing's arms shot up around his neck, dragging him down to the shorter's level and to collide their lips like Yifan had always loved Yixing to do.

His own hands fell down to the younger's hips to hold him there to keep him from disappearing as though he was some kind of deluded mirage of Yifan's own craving for happiness. But as Yixing's tongue prodded between his lips, he allowed the younger to enter his mouth and swirl their tongues together like they were dancing serpents. Yifan felt Yixing's arms drift down his sides, meaning that they were both at each other's waists and he only faltered a touch when Yixing's fingers continued until they met the bottom of his shirt.

The editor's fingers, as cool and slightly calloused as they were, felt gentle as they curled into the hem of Yifan's shirt to creep it up and touch the bare skin there. Yifan was dumbstruck for a count of five seconds before Yixing's fingertips brushed over his navel and shot shivers up his spine.

That was when the switch in Yifan's body flicked, the frustration and annoyance that had built up during the evening came to a head and he was pushing Yixing up against the wall with a hollow thud. The younger didn't protest or whine at the action, he let out a gentle moan and his fingers went up to Yifan's ribs as if he was exploring uncharted territory. The elder began to push back with his tongue, causing Yixing's to fall back into his own mouth and curl around Yifan's to share whatever they had to pass between one another. Yifan dug his fingers even deeper into Yixing's hips, his nails caught in the younger's jeans and Yixing was curving his back so that he could press his waist against Yifan's body while he kept his shoulders firmly on the wall. That meant Yifan was wrapped around Yixing, their bodies maintaining full contact and Yifan could only just register Yixing's fingers walking up his rib cage.

Yixing pulled away to look down at Yifan's body and the tall male suddenly felt a wave self-consciousness crash over him as he tried to retract a few inches to shy away from the gaze. Yixing didn't question the movement aloud but continued on with the way his fingers felt over the indentations of Yifan's ribs. Yixing's eyes followed the way his fingers drifted over Yifan's body and Yifan's stare remained levelled on Yixing's face, avoiding all opportunities to look down at his own body.

Yifan didn't have a bad body per se, he was just insecure about it. He ranged on the side of being skinny, rather than lean or muscular. His bones were that little bit sharper at the joints and his ribs could be seen like waves under his flesh, it was nothing of the desirable forms Yifan often thought of. He knew it couldn't have been too appealing to touch or give attention to.

He could not work out why Yixing would want to touch him or why Yixing would continue to run his fingers over Yifan's front over and over again. The elder could see how Yixing concentrated on his body and could feel the gentle brushes of his hands, it made Yifan move his head to hide in Yixing's hair.

Only a few minutes passed before Yixing was tugging Yifan's shirt over his head, it left him bare and almost vulnerable but that was forgotten once Yixing's lips found his again. Their kisses returned with the fullest of forces, their mouths clashed and teeth knocked every so often as they tried to grasp their footing with one another one more time.

Yixing's hands move back away to his own button up and he began to pop them all undone one by one and Yifan took that moment to steal an appreciative glimpse of the other's body. He could see where Yixing's body bettered his own; he was covered in supple muscle and Yifan's mind commanded him to touch, he wanted to cover the other's flesh with his hands and feel every inch. He was enticed closer by the light golden colour of his skin, a tone that reflected into Yifan's eyes in an even softer glow than it probably was but it only served to make Yixing look better. He appeared flawlessly in front of Yifan and he wasn't sure if he would ever be able to hold back if Yixing were to go further.

That didn't stop the editor from edging his hands closer to Yifan's belt buckle and Yifan swiftly moved his hands to clasp around Yixing's, stopping anymore movement.

"Are you sure?" He whispered as if somebody could hear them. "Are you certain you want to do this?"

Yixing seemed to battle with himself for a few seconds, each of those moments chipped away at Yifan's sanity and Yixing didn't respond verbally, he merely moved his fingers to undo Yifan's belt, undid the metal button and pulled the zipper down tooth by tooth. Yixing hesitated for a moment again before he pulled Yifan's jeans off his hips and let them sink to the floor. Yifan watched as Yixing slowly began to smile as he dragged his fingers from the outer sides of Yifan's pelvis to the centre. His fingers flicked and fiddled with the elastic of Yifan's underwear, he delved his fingers in and Yifan could sense the arousal flowing down throughout his body. His toes and fingers balled up when the tips of Yixing's fingers came into contact with the head of his cock, the digits explored the whole body of his member and Yifan's breath jammed in his throat.

The shorter male seemed to be more coherent has he massaged up and down Yifan's shaft, discovering every touchable detail of it before he wrapped his hand around the base and tugged upwards. Yifan couldn't stifle the moans and whines that vibrated in his throat, they flowed out as freely as Yixing was touching him until Yixing took his hands away. The younger looked at Yifan for a moment, decided upon pressing a chaste kiss on the taller's lips and stepped out of his hold to saunter to the bedroom.

Yifan was aware of the fact that he was only in his underwear, his slippers and his socks. He felt bare and unprotected but stepped out of the jeans around his ankles to follow Yixing nonetheless. He rounded into his bedroom where Yixing was fumbling with his own jeans. The younger appeared to have difficulties with the buttons, so Yifan allowed his larger hands to take over and slowly tug down the jeans. The other discarded of his shirt and Yifan touched at the faint lines of abs that stayed hidden under the skin, it served to push him to feel awe and awkwardness.

Yixing was something to be marvelled at, his body was moulded into a lean creation that was a spectacle before Yifan's eyes and under his hands. The editor pressed their chests together as their lips joined again, there was nothing but desire in every breath and Yifan felt his youthful vigour wasting away as Yixing pried for him to be closer. Yixing spread across Yifan's skin like wildfire under the desert sun, everything was kindling and everything could be burned until it crumbled into hunger.

The younger pulled himself away, stepped back and spread himself out across the bed. His legs parted, his fingers ran down his body and toyed with the hem of his underwear. Yixing called out then,

"Yifan."

Yifan gulped. It was difficult to think properly as his every wish was displayed in front of him and Yifan knew he'd fallen in deep. He loved Yixing.

He moved forward with as much conviction as he could muster and soon he was upon Yixing. The younger dragged him down with a power that had Yifan overwhelmed and excited, Yixing was a vision of finesse as he teased over himself and Yifan knew that was his silent invitation to be touched.

When Yifan did crawl over Yixing, the other shuffled back up the bed until he was laid upon pillows with his back arched upwards. Yixing's fingers pried down his underwear and let his little fingers catch on Yifan's, a subtle hint the elder read instantly. To which he followed the unspoken suggestion and they were both joined, naked and panting in the anticipation.

Everything froze in time as Yixing looked up at Yifan, the taller felt the surge of voltage from it and Yixing's own fingers were creeping down between them. The actions were slow, calculating but hesitant whilst they waited for the other to call the moment off but neither of them did so as Yixing's fingers touched at Yifan's length with a grace he shouldn't have had in that moment.

Yixing's other hand went in the opposite direction to his mouth, his tongue licked over the digits a few times─which Yifan was sure was for his arousing benefit─and then they were bypassing both of their bodies. Yifan pulled back for a short moment to see how Yixing was stroking himself open. Yifan leant up above Yixing to pick around in his bedside drawer for a small foil packet and the slippery tube that he knew wasn't too far from the box of condoms.

"Yifan," Yixing whispered, Yifan let his head fall a little to meld their lips.

"Yixing," he hummed as the other's hand toyed with him more.

Yifan felt like his soul was sucked out of him when Yixing's hands settled upon his shoulders and his eyes expectantly flicked to the condom packet. It was nothing of the ravenous clawing that had happened previously, nor was it anything of the tender touches that it could have been. It was a little forward, on Yixing's behalf. It was a little bashful, on Yifan's behalf. But somehow, they were both connected with their eyes and skin.

The condom was rolled down over Yifan and he pressed into Yixing as soon as the younger welcomed him between his legs and he felt the pleasant clenching of warm around him as the other relaxed. Yixing, on the inside, was just as heavenly as his exterior and Yifan hadn't had somebody encompass him so finely in his life. Yifan held one of Yixing's hands with their fingers twined up by the younger's head on the pillow whilst he began to thrust gently against Yixing's hips.

Yixing curved his back, his eyes and his legs; each of those drew Yifan in as Yixing began to grind back against him. They didn't speak but their lips brushed against the other's cheek, their breaths blew hotly and their chests bumped every so often.

Yifan's cock slid out of Yixing to be coaxed back in by the tightening around the tip; no matter how much Yifan thought he was a lesser being physically than Yixing, the younger seemed to be tempted by Yifan, too. Yixing was aroused looking at the elder, the art buyer couldn't believe it. His hand held the palm and fingers of the other even tighter.

The editor came first, hot and white over both of their chests. Yifan followed quickly behind, his cum filled the condom and flooded around his member until it softened in the latex and he pulled out of Yixing. Their hands let go of each other when Yifan laid out on the mattress. The younger slid closer to him and nestled on his chest, both his knees touched Yifan's thigh and the elder's hand wrapped around his waist to pull him closer.

Silent, quiet and noiseless was the atmosphere as Yifan wondered if Yixing regretted what he'd done if his lack of speaking or large actions were anything to go by. It plunged Yifan into a stark sense of insecurity right up until he peered down, Yixing was asleep. His lips were spread in a small but genuine smile.

Yifan knew instantly that he was in love, there was no going back. He'd had all of Yixing and he wanted his heart, too.

 

◎◉◎

 

The appearance of Lu Han and Huang Zitao in Yixing's life was a shock he hadn't yet been prepared for, it had been only Yixing in Yifan's apartment when the two men walked in and saw him laid out across the rug in the living room with Rourou snuggled into his side. Yixing had stayed the night, it was the sixth time he'd done so and he had grown comfortable enough to stay floating around in his pyjamas whenever Yifan ran morning errands.

In the immediate confusion of who each other were, Yixing yelped in fright while scrambling to his feet and the two intruders furrowed their brows deep enough for shadowed lines to form across their skin.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The shorter one, Lu Han as he later found out, had interrogated with a solid grimace. "Where's Yifan?"

Yixing's mouth had opened and shut itself dumbly. He didn't know what to label himself, he didn't know how to speak with the two men approaching him from the hallway and he didn't know what he could do to save himself in the situation. Yixing's brain yelled out silently for Yifan. The older male could save him from the awkward situation unfolding in front of him.

"Hey, are you okay?" The taller one asked, his eyes scrolled over Yixing's rigidness with the understanding of the uncertainty and dismay. Yixing guessed that he felt the same.

He nodded, the man relaxed his shoulders and the shorter one moved further into the apartment. Yixing didn't know how the men knew Yifan or how well they knew him, he only guessed that they were close because Rourou had gone to greet the taller one with a bark that Yixing knew was his version of a familiar hello. They all sat down on the sofas awkwardly, the two new men examined Yixing as his eyes concentrated on where his hands had fallen on his thighs.

Yixing was stock still in his place when Yifan walked in through the front door with bags of food in his hands, he blinked as he took in the two men sat with Yixing and dashed to place everything in the kitchen, the perishables went into the fridge prior to him sitting down as closely to Yixing as he could.

"Ge," the taller stranger began, "who is this?"

"You've not introduced yourself?" Yifan was close enough that his breath passed over Yixing's cheek. He shook his head. "This is Yixing."

"Are you two dating?" the other guest questioned.

"It's complicated," Yifan supplied yet one of his hands found Yixing's to hold it gently on the younger's lap. The two arrivals watched the action with interest but Yixing couldn't gauge their reactions in his lasting state of panic.

"What do you mean?" The tall one pried. "Is he your boyfriend?"

Yixing squeezed Yifan's hand, the gesture both comforting and fearful, Yifan turned his head to look at Yixing's face and he flushed under the attention of everybody in the room.

"Not exactly," Yifan struggled to say without gulping. "Just know that I trust him enough to leave him alone in my apartment with my dog."

"You've never let us do that," the shorter's eyes didn't leave Yixing as he directed his statement to Yifan, the editor wanted to shy away from the scrutiny and hide behind Yifan's shoulder.

"But you have got a key, so you could do that," the words flowed smoothly from Yifan's mouth and Yixing watched his lips move around each syllable. "Yixing stayed the night and he's also staying for breakfast."

"Is this some sort of no strings attached deal?"

Yixing half wanted to laugh and every other part of him wanted to cry at the comment, the strings that were attached to Yifan and Yixing were what he tried his hardest to forget about every day. Yifan, it seemed, carried the same sentiment when he sighed and ran his hand down his face.

The editor understood why Yifan replied with a _yes_ to his friend, it was the easier way of explaining their situation without using the buzzwords that would give Yixing away. His response relaxed the two men enough for them to introduce themselves as Lu Han and Huang Zitao, they regarded Yixing politely and he could see the stiffness in Yifan's posture lessen greatly.

Yixing cooked the four of them breakfast because that had been what Lu Han and Tao had turned up for, according to them but Yifan rolled his eyes and muttered something about them only staying because Yixing was staying. He felt eyes on his back whilst he moved around the kitchen knowingly of where everything was kept and he heard Yifan engage his friends in conversation to distract them.

Except Yixing was sure they could see right through him. He wasn't sure if it was his paranoia or anxiety thinking for him but the way they watched him appeared knowing. Yixing didn't know them, though, he couldn't be sure.

The morning, as awkward and aware of the situation as it made Yixing, was pleasant enough when the two strangers' faces lit up tasting what Yixing had cooked, their blatant but positive surprise made Yixing relax in his chair when he placed himself beside Yifan and the art buyer's hand firmly pinched his thigh right above his knee.

Lu Han and Tao left hours later after having relaxed a little more around Yixing enough to know that he and Yifan were fully comfortable with one another. They exited the apartment with well-wishing for whatever was going on between the remaining pair and Yixing's smile faltered on his face, he heard Yifan's laugh force its way out of his throat.

They stared at each other for a long while in the corridor once the door was shut again, Yixing wasn't sure if they were waiting for something but he didn't want to be the first to move away from the eye contact. He saw the clouded appearance of Yifan's eyes clear up the longer they watched each other and Yixing's hand moved to bring the taller closer with the front of his shirt. Yifan let the movement take him and their lips met halfway.

The kiss lasted a few moments being a closed and cautious one, Yixing could taste the coffee on Yifan's lips and he knew the elder must have got the same from him. Yifan whispered for Yixing to get back into bed while he turned away to rummage in the drawers by the shoe rack and Yixing tilted his head questioningly when he heard tinkering. He did as was requested and slipped under the duvet to have the lazy day he'd been promised when they'd first woken.

He couldn't see what Yifan was doing or what he was doing in the drawer, so Yixing was surprised to feel his hand be plucked open and for something jagged to be pressed into it upon Yifan's return to his side. He looked down and stare questioningly at the key he'd been handed. Their legs were twisted together, their bodies were pressed as closely as they could be and Yixing's heart hammered against his ribs.

"They've got their keys," Yifan whispered against Yixing's ear, "and I think you should have one, too."

Yixing ignored the part of himself that told him accepting the small metal item wasn't a good idea but the fireworks that exploded in his stomach drowned it out with their excitedly happy explosions of feeling. His fingers were looping the key onto his chain instantly before he pitched up to kiss Yifan's mouth to slip down his neck and dwell at his chest with his lips through his shirt.

"Let yourself in whenever you want," Yifan whispered and Yixing wasn't sure if he was just talking about the apartment.

 

◎◉◎

 

The publishing date of the book Yixing had been editing advanced upon him quickly and Yixing felt a jolt of apprehension rocket through him when he began to doubt his working ability. With his mind so preoccupied with his own life, interacting with his author had slipped to the backburner but she held no animosity when they met face-to-face a few weeks before the launch party. She was a middle-aged but incredibly beautiful woman who smiled with the whole of her face when she saw her young editor. While Yixing had been concerned that his work had not been good enough, she showered him with praise and claimed that her story wouldn't be what it had grown into without Yixing's nurturing hand.

That alone was worth the work he had put into it and she had happily told him that she would want him to be her editor on all her future publications if there were any. That stability was what Yixing needed as his life spiralled somewhat out of control.

He split his time between his own and Yifan's apartment less evenly knowing that there would be somebody waiting for him more often in one than the other. He didn't like it but he found drifting from Baekhyun easier as they spent less and less time together, his head ached more than his heart when he bid goodbye to his boyfriend to go and meet with Yifan. Conversely, the opposite happened when Yifan kissed him farewell at the threshold of his apartment. His heart lurched and shot pain around his body when he walked away from the elder. He didn't know how to interpret it but he knew it wasn't right.

 

◎◉◎

 

Yixing woke slowly, the curtains hadn't been shut and the light flooded into the room with a glow on Yifan's skin that he could see as his eyes blinked sleep away slowly. Yixing felt the warmth of the sun on the back of his head, summer was well and truly upon him and he didn't mind how aberrantly hot he felt with Yifan's arms around his waist. However, he didn't mind so much when he could watch the sleeping male with a soft smile on his lips without the fear of being caught.

His heart melted easily whenever he looked up at the other. The darker patches around Yifan's mouth that he'd shave away were visible, his eyelids were a slightly deeper shade than the rest of his face and his skin looked a little shiny with the grease that built up during slumber. Yixing didn't mind those, he loved them in fact, and then lightly traced his fingertips over those areas of the other's face.

Yifan didn't wake at the touches, his deep sleeping tendencies stopped that from happening and Yixing couldn't imagine having to live without having sight of Yifan during his days, especially in the mornings. He felt ill-aligned whenever Yifan had to go out of town, though he had begun to invite Yixing to go with him as the editor had time off after the book was published and hit the shelves. As much as Yixing wanted to agree, he couldn't bring himself to.

And yet, when he looked at Yifan that morning something snapped into place in his head. It was what had him sliding out of Yifan's arms and the bed. He crept over to the bundle of clothes he had in the corner of the room and pulled them over his limbs, once he was fully dressed he nipped into the bathroom to brush his teeth and exited the apartment with his keys pushed into his back pocket.

His foot tapped anxiously on the subway floor, which he was sure the other commuters probably hated him for but he took no notice of the world around him as the train shook with movement.

The day was starting out warm, the humidity was high and it would have made the journey unbearable if that had been what Yixing was thinking about as he climbed up and out onto the street. The rest of the walk was instinctive amongst the familiar buildings framing the roadway and paths.

Yixing stepped up into his apartment structure, the stairs creaked beneath his feet and the walls smelled completely different to the clean, clear and fresh scent that Yifan's building had. Nerves fizzled and popped all over his body when he reached the floor that he had grown so familiar with but he felt somewhat estranged from in the months that had gone by. It didn't flood him with the warmness that it had done before nor did it make him deflate in relief to be where he lived again; nothing felt homely.

His fingers delved into his back pocket tentatively and gripped at the warm metal, his hands shook as he took the key out and moved it forward to the door. Yixing heard the gentle clinking as his key tapped on another, that one was silver and crisply cut. He smiled gently as he regarded it, there was a warmth to the cold appearing metal that made him think of the man he'd left sleeping in the bed that morning.

He retained thought of how he flushed watching Yifan and realised he was in love, the voice of clarity in his head that told him what to do and he pushed the key into the lock to twist it to the side. He heard the grinding of metal slipping until the final click echoed through the hallway and he steeled himself to push the door open. From the entryway, he could see everything was exactly where he'd left it but there were more items added around; an abandoned pair of shoes, keys sprawled out on the desk and a coat dangled from one of the three hooks on the wall. Baekhyun was there and had probably spent the night, given how early in the day it was.

Yixing held the jamb as he slid off his own shoes. His slippers were left at Yifan's, so only the thuds of his socked feet on the floor could be heard as he made his way to the kitchen. He slid into one of the chairs and sat there.

Everything was quiet. Everything was still. Everything within Yixing was noiseless. His thoughts didn't race or rage like he thought they would. Minutes skated by effortlessly. He knew he shouldn't have felt so calm, there should have been an element of shame or guilt within him as he thought of what he'd decided to do. Yixing, by and large, was fully aware that he didn't deserve to have peace infused into his blood.

It wasn't difficult for Yixing to admit that he was an adulterer, he hadn't remained faithful to his relationship and nothing he'd done merited being able to find that uncontrollable but compatible kind of love that he'd managed to seek in Yifan.

Baekhyun's slippers shuffling into the frame Yixing's eyes had focused upon on the floor had him blinking from his comfortable stare and he took in how the younger looked with his hair mussed by a pillow. The Korean had forever seemed fluffier and softer in the mornings, that had softened Yixing to him in the beginning because Baekhyun never seemed to mind the small cowlicks in his hair nor the print of crinkled pillow cases on his face. Yixing could remember the nerves he'd had when he'd first woken up beside Baekhyun; if his morning breath would scare the younger off, if Baekhyun would find Yixing unappealing with his unkempt appearance or if the Korean wouldn't like his morning voice. There had been so much anxiety surrounding something so small and Yixing hadn't ever felt like that when he was with Yifan.

All he'd felt was the softening of his chest and the arms around his waist, there had been nothing other than Yifan in his head. No fear. No anxiety. No reluctance.

"Morning," Baekhyun mumbled while he ran his hand through his hair. "Where were you last night? Did you get in late and sleep on the couch again?"

Yixing didn't reply, the younger hadn't asked them in expectation of a reply as he rooted around in the refrigerator in search of something to eat. The editor didn't move a muscle from where he was, his eyes barely moved from Baekhyun's back as he plucked bowls and tea cups from the cupboards up above his head and Yixing nibbled on his lip as he waited for the perfect moment. He knew one had to appear soon.

Baekhyun hummed, the tone of it bright and cheerful. The sound no longer brightened the room for Yixing, the other's voice hadn't made goosebumps rise on his skin for such a long time that he could scarcely remember when it had last happened.

It was only when the food was placed on the table, one bowl for Yixing and another for Baekhyun, along with cups of steaming hot tea that Yixing eventually released his lip from betwixt his teeth and levelled a look on Baekhyun as solidly as he could muster.

"Baek," Yixing's voice sounded neutral and he settled at that flow from his mouth, "I have something to tell you." The Korean didn't look up from his food but nodded, the communication between them minimal and almost foreign as Yixing couldn't even get Baekhyun's full attention when he was the only person in front of him. "I've," Yixing paused for breath, "I've found somebody else."

The younger froze in his place for a collection of seconds, Yixing didn't feel time pass like it had done before Baekhyun had entered the room and he held his breath when Baekhyun placed his chopsticks down on the table next to his porcelain bowl.

"Oh," the word blew out of Baekhyun's lips.

"I've been unfaithful, not just emotionally," Yixing closed his eyes for a beat, "but physically, too."

Baekhyun's hands balled up on the table where they had landed, his nails dragged along the placemat until they were curled up under his palms on the wood of the surface.

"You cheated on me." It wasn't a question, it wasn't even an accusatory statement but a moment of realisation. Yixing nodded anyway.

"I want to be with him," Yixing confessed and he witnessed the moment Baekhyun's chest caved in on itself.

He watched as Baekhyun's body reduced in size to protect itself and Yixing's eyes flooded with tears, it was horrible. He hadn't expected it to be a pleasant action, he'd done the most unforgivable thing imaginable to somebody he was supposed to love and he deserved the sharp pain in his chest when he saw water drop down onto the back of Baekhyun's small hand.

"Is that where you were?"

"Last night? Yes," Yixing responded honestly and Baekhyun shook his head.

"No, our anniversary. Is that where you went?" The Korean words accented themselves in the promise of pain and Yixing wished he could say no to the question but the visions of Yifan hovering above him, Yifan kissing him and Yifan's hands in his as they thrust against each other wasn't something he could possibly deny to himself. Or Baekhyun.

Yixing's voice caught in his throat, "Yes."

"I came home after work late because the subways were running so late, I thought you'd be here and you weren't," Baekhyun laughed bitterly. "I felt so guilty, I couldn't sleep because of it and you," the Korean's voice wobbled, "you were with another man all along?"

"I was," Yixing chokingly conceded with shame crawling up the back of his neck to wrap around his throat.

"How long?" Baekhyun wiped his tears with the sleeves of his night shirt. "How long has this been happening?"

"A few months."

The younger scoffed, "How many months?"

"I met him ten months ago but things changed around seven months ago."

Baekhyun’s crying paused the conversation, the sadness within the Korean dissipated and it was simple to see that it was replaced with anger. Yixing, himself, let his own tears scrawl down his cheeks as he faced the reality of the choices he’d made. He struggled but knew it was pointless, the blame was on him.

"Why wasn't I enough for you? I know I wasn't here a lot but why couldn't I be enough for you? I love you so much, I think about you almost all the time and you've been thinking about somebody else while you've been with me for _ten_ months? What did I do to make you do this? I stayed in China for _you_. I left my family behind because you didn't want to leave your life here behind and you go fuck some other man because I didn't pay you enough attention? I didn't think you were that kind of man, Yixing."

"I'm not," Yixing half defended. "I fell in love and I didn't realise until it was too late and I was in too deep with him to turn back."

"You should have broken up with me way back then," Baekhyun screamed at him from where he was sat and Yixing recoiled as if he had been struck by the words. "As soon as you felt the need to let another man in, you should have ended it with me. Yeah, that would have hurt and it would have been horrible but this, all of this, is so much worse. I'm not the man who was broken up with because his boyfriend had fallen out of love with him, no, I'm the man who was fucked over by the man he loved because he couldn't grow some fucking balls and own up to his mistake."

"I'm owning up to this now," Yixing cried out. "I've hated myself for months and I know I deserve it but I couldn't choose when I loved you both at the same time."

"And what's so different about now, huh?" Baekhyun's eyes slit themselves accusingly. "Why did this sudden fit of conscience happen?"

"I'm hurting him," Yixing whispered as his hands fell onto his lap, his eyes followed them down from Baekhyun and met the spaces between his fingers where Yifan's had been when he'd woken up that morning. "I don't want to hurt him."

"Because he's so perfect, right? The man that goes after somebody in a relationship?"

"It's not his fault," Yixing defended with tears in his eyes. "It's not like that. He's not like that."

"But that's what he did, Yixing. He didn't care that you were with somebody else, he didn't care that he was fucking up a relationship and he didn't care that you were in love with somebody else."

"Don't talk about him like that," Yixing bit out with his fists clenched. "You don't know anything about him or what he's like."

"I don't care what he's like. He didn't care about me, why should I care about him?" Baekhyun leant over the table with his eyes sharpened with a harshness Yixing had never seen before.

"This is my fault, this is all me and I should have stopped things from happening," the Chinese male stated plainly. "I told him it was okay to pursue me, he never would have unless I wasn't receptive to it. Just blame me. You can't help who you fall in love with."

"No, you can't," Baekhyun stood up from the chair he was on with the feet of it grinding on the floor. "I fell in love with a liar.” Baekhyun screamed with his mouth shut, YixinG flinched and the Korean took a deep breath in. “I'm going out, I want your stuff gone before I'm back since you have somewhere you can run off to."

Yixing nodded, blinking away fresher tears. He didn't expect anything more from breaking up with Baekhyun and he didn't watch as the Korean left the room, subsequently the apartment. He stared at the food set out in front of them and saw how the tea had stopped evaporating.

He sat redundantly for a while before he took the apartment key from his small collection and moved to the bedroom to pull all of his clothes into his bag as fast as he could. It only took twenty minutes to have everything he needed in two duffel bags given how much of his stuff had been left at Yifan's apartment over the months and Yixing knew he should have done something similar earlier. He knew Baekhyun was right. He should have followed his heart when he'd first started to stray.

Yixing yanked his stuff down to the street and pulled it along with him until he was at the subway station with everything he owned of any value.

Getting to Yifan's apartment was all he'd wanted for the whole journey, he could force a smile at the doorman and use the elevator to take himself and his items up to the floor Yifan lived on then let himself into the apartment with the key he had in his pocket. He dumped his bags at the entrance, he didn't want to assume he could stay with Yifan and stripped right down to his underwear there and then. He dropped those clothes in the laundry as he passed it before he made his way to Yifan's bedroom. The older male was asleep under the duvet and Yixing's legs took him right to his side instantly, he climbed onto the mattress and nestled under the covers to cuddle into Yifan's side.

"Where did you go?" The hot, sleep bittered breath slipped over his skin as Yifan's arms drew him in closer.

"The other apartment," Yixing hummed as he looked up at the other man, who still had his eyes closed.

"You ran out of clothes? You could have borrowed some of my stuff," Yifan mumbled whilst his nose found its way to press against Yixing's jaw.

"No," Yixing shook his head. "I went there to end things with Baekhyun."

Yifan's eyes fluttered open and he looked at Yixing with a sign of warning in his eyes, "That's not funny, Yixing."

"I'm being serious," Yixing hooked one of his legs around Yifan's hip and turned them over until he was on top of Yifan's hips. "I ended things with him."

"Are you okay?" Yifan was instantly awake and holding Yixing's jawbone in both his hands to keep their eyes met. "Yixing, why didn't you tell me?"

The smaller placed his hands on top of Yifan's heart, "and I couldn't be that man anymore. I never wanted this to happen but I didn't want to admit that I was drifting from Baekhyun and that I was falling hard and fast for you."

"You were falling for me?" Yifan's head tilted to the side and Yixing's felt his heartbeat pick up under his hands.

"I still am," he nodded.

Yifan smiled loosely up at him and Yixing knew he couldn't help but lean over until it was covered in his lips and Yifan's nose brushed against his own.

"I shouldn't have done this to either of you," Yixing whispered as Yifan's eyes closed again, "and I should have chosen you long ago."

"Why didn't you?" Yifan wondered aloud and Yixing frowned because he finally knew.

"I was too scared to admit that this is the person I really am. I hold too tightly to the past and love my future too much to let it slip by me."

"I'm your future," Yifan's lips wobbled against Yixing's and the editor fell apart around the word _'_ _yes'_ as they joined their lips together.

When Yifan pulled back, his eyes didn’t leave Yixing and suddenly the rush of happiness that went hand-in-hand with belonging only to Yifan crumbled away. His eyes watered, his lips pulled into a tight frown and he deflated fully on top of the taller male. His crying felt endless as he replayed the pain of hurting Baekhyun, all of his raw emotions surfaced and he cried out numbly for the hurt he'd caused people he was supposed to care about. It wasn't pity, it was the realisation of pain and manipulation. It chewed him up inside but he knew it was nothing compared to what Baekhyun must have been feeling.

 

◎◉◎

 

Yixing didn't quite know what to fear as he made his way to Minseok and Jongdae's café the week after. When he met the furious gazes of his friends he knew that Baekhyun had gone to see them and that they were in full knowledge of what Yixing had done. He sat at one of the empty tables until the coffee shop emptied and the two Koreans shut up the front doors, they only approached him when they were fully alone and Yixing's hands timidly twiddled together.

"I want to hit you," Jongdae growled out when Yixing's eyes didn't meet his whilst he plonked himself in the chair.

"But, because we are fair friends, we are going to let you explain yourself first," Minseok spoke softly but his eyes were as hard as Jongdae's.

"What do you know?" Yixing's gaze remained downcast as his friends sighed out.

"We know that you had another man on the go when you were supposed to be faithful to Baekhyun," Jongdae's mouth must have curled around the sentence from the way he had said it and Yixing nodded gently.

"He didn't say anything more than that about it, he broke down before he could say anything else. Why did you do it?"

"Initially," Yixing looked at them after a few minutes of mulling over the question fully, "I was hurt because I hated how little I seemed to mean to Baekhyun but I didn't do this to hurt him. None of this was intentional but I couldn't stop it once it had started. I was supposed to be in love with Baekhyun, I was supposed to feel the world for him and I should have wanted to say no when I actually said yes. And then I met him, _Yifan,_ and everything was different."

 _"Yifan?"_ Jongdae's head tilted to the side. "That's the guy's name?"

"He was constantly there for me from the minute we met and he came into my life like a whirlwind. We were only supposed to be friends at first but then something clicked between us and I found myself keeping him a secret. I lied about when I was with him because I didn't want people to take my time with him away from me. It sounds so stupid when I say it aloud now but I had felt so neglected for so long that I wanted to grant myself a little selfishness with somebody I seemed to fit."

"At least you got the selfish part right," Jongdae muttered bitterly. "Though, I'm sure it was far more than a little of it."

"It wasn't supposed to turn into this…then he kissed me one night," Yixing could remember it clearly in his mind. "I thought about it for so long, I felt so much from this one little peck and it was so much more than I had felt from Baekhyun in such a long time. I left him then, Yifan, that is. As much as the guilt consumed me, the need to be close to Yifan won me over."

"Why didn't you leave Baekhyun then?" Minseok's question was serious and Yixing could see how Jongdae bristled when he heard it. "If you felt do much for this Yifan man, why didn't you end things there and then?"

"I thought the feeling would burn out, I thought it was those jitters you get when you're with somebody new but when I kiss him now, I still feel them. I thought it was this phase I had to shake off and get out of my system then go back to being happy with whatever Baekhyun gave me. And when they didn't fade, I was so tangled in everything─the lies, the guilt and the feelings─that I couldn't leave either of them."

Jongdae sat back in his chair as he ran his hands through his hair and Yixing observed how Minseok's hand rubbed soothingly on the youngest's thigh.

"I messed everything up but it was a mistake. I thought I was in love with two people," Yixing looked down at a faded ring mark from a cup that had been left there for too long with a wet base. "I didn't mean to hurt anybody and I had this moment of clarity the other morning. I was with Yifan, we'd spent the night talking and playing around until we fell asleep and I woke up with this profound sense of belonging and feeling at home. I couldn't have chosen Baekhyun when I had never experienced that with him."

"You've caused so much pain, Zhang Yixing," Jongdae stared right through him. "I sympathised with you for so long, I was in pain knowing that Baekhyun didn't treat you perfectly but he was always faithful to you."

"I know, I never even considered otherwise," Yixing closed his eyes before placing his head in his hands, "and I know what I did was wrong but I couldn't say how desperate I had become by the time Yifan was fully in my life."

"I think I can see where you're coming from," Minseok announced after a few minutes of eeriness among the three of them. Jongdae's affronted expression was equalled by Yixing's shock as he lifted his head up. "You were hurt and lonely, even we could see that, and people do things that are completely out of character when they're like that. That doesn't mean that I agree with how you've gone about things. I think you should have broken up with Baekhyun for the reasons why you wanted somebody else, you should have sat him down long before any of this happened and told him the truth about how he makes you feel but you didn't, you wanted to see this whole thing through. But then you met this Yifan man, he filled all those little gaps and cared about you."

Jongdae didn't appear pleased with the words Minseok was speaking but Yixing listened in intently as his friend put everything into words. "He made you feel like everything was okay again and you started enjoying the time you spent with Baekhyun but you had something to fill the time when you weren't with him or working. You were in over your head before you knew it and I can't say that I blame you for it because I really should."

"Hyung," Jongdae yelped out in outrage.

"What? You said it yourself, Baekhyun didn't treat him right for so long and Yixing took it because he thought he was in love. We talked about it on our own, we said that Yixing needed to find somebody that would love and appreciate him and yes, the execution of the whole situation is hurtful and horrible, but Yixing would never have left Baekhyun if he hadn't found this other man."

"That doesn't excuse infidelity, hyung," Jongdae retorted straight off the bat.

"I didn't say that it does," Minseok clarified easily. "It isn’t hard to place blame in this situation but they were both as bad as each other in that relationship. Baekhyun thought he could run around living his life with his friends rather than meet up with Yixing for an hour at lunch on a Wednesday. Let alone spend enough time with Yixing in general. We both know that Yixing would never have strayed had he not felt some kind of emotional push either from Baekhyun or this other man. He would never have cut himself out of something that made him miserable had he not come across _Yifan."_

"This is all so fucked up," Jongdae pulled away from the table and whipped the apron he had hung around his lips onto the counter as he made his way out to the back kitchen.

"I'm sorry."

"I won't forgive you right now, neither will he," Minseok patted Yixing's hand from across the table. "Even if we can't forgive you for this, we want you to be happy. That's all either of us have ever wanted. I really do not agree with how you went about it but I've never been in this situation before. I don't think you're a bad person, I think you're a good person who did a really shitty thing."

"Do you know if Baekhyun's okay?"

"He flew back to Korea early this morning, he came by here yesterday to tell us that he was leaving and why he was leaving," Minseok rubbed his eyes, his fingers shook as he did so. "I would never have imagined you'd do something like this to him, to anybody, but are you sure this guy is worth all of this?"

"Yifan didn't deserve to be dragged into this," Yixing laughed bitterly, "but yeah, I don't think I could be without him now I've found him."

"You do realise you're going to have problems, especially with trust, because of how you got together? One of you will constantly be paranoid that the other would do something like this again."

Yixing bit his lip and nodded, "I wouldn't ever, not to him."

"You would have said the same about Baekhyun this time last year."

"I know but this feels different, this feels like _it."_

Minseok regarded him for a long while, Yixing shifted under the scrutiny and then the Korean pulled away from the table. "Give Jongdae, and me, some time and let us process all of this because we need this time apart too. You didn't only lie to Baekhyun."

Yixing stood up from his chair, "Thank you for hearing me out, ge."

"We heard his side of everything and there's always two sides to everything. Where are you staying? Seeing as Baekhyun ended the letting contract."

"With Yifan right now but I'm looking for my own place," Yixing cleared his throat.

"Okay."

They left it at that and Yixing left the coffee shop with a sense of shock running through his veins as he approached the park where Yifan had texted him to tell him he was with Rourou. Yixing could hear the pair of them before he saw them, the dog's playful yips echoed around and the rumble of Yifan's laughter vibrated through the air easily.

The small poodle noticed Yixing approaching first, he dashed right over and Yifan followed closely behind him with a smile on his face as he took the sight of Yixing in. The elder approached him with care as he saw the wetness that clung to Yixing's eyelashes.

"How did it go?" The elder leant forward to until his lips met Yixing's forehead with a gentle press.

"Dae's mad at me and as is Minseok, but he seems to have accepted things a little better."

"I don't think you could have expected much less," Yifan hummed and Yixing knew that too, that's why he had felt so scared going into the meeting.

"Minseok said something though and I think we need to talk about it," Yixing took Yifan's hand in his to draw him closer to one of the benches dotted around. They sat down, the man in front of Yixing looked at him seriously and rubbed his thumb over Yixing's wrist. "Ge said that because of how this relationship started, we might not trust each other as much as people who get together cleanly. There will always be this idea of _'_ _he did it before, he could do it again,'_ hanging over me and when things get hard for us, I could have the idea that you were only into the forbidden fruit aspect of things and I do not want that for us. I want there to be a measure of strength in the base we build with each other."

"You want to ensure that we trust each other," Yifan clarified and Yixing agreed instantly. "I think that would be important too."

"I don't want to smother you, nor do I want you to smother me, however, a willingness to be open will go a long way and saying that this will never happen with us is easy now but those bumps in the road that people in healthily starting relationships will seem so much harder to surpass with the history we have."

"I want this to work. I have wanted you for so long now and I haven't felt anything like this before, I will try with everything I have to make this relationship a success."

"I don't want all of this to be pointless, my mistakes have cost me the trust of three people and I can't let that all go to waste."

"I know," Yifan moved closer to Yixing and the younger tucked himself under Yifan's side with a gentle sigh. "We'll make this work, we did this because of how we feel and we will continue to move forward with that."

"I can't help but feel like I don't deserve any of this, I shouldn't be allowed to have my happiness or have you still by my side. Especially after everything I have put you through over the past few months, I think you deserve better than this and I don't think I would stand in your way if you ever wanted to leave. Nevertheless, I still want this to work out."

Yifan lifted Yixing's nose up to let their lips meet with a subtle brush of tongue, "Happiness and honesty come first, okay?"

 

◎◉◎

 

Yixing’s flight landed exactly on time, he smiled when he looked out of the window and saw small flakes of snow blow past him in the wind. When he made his way into the airport and it was safe to remove his from airplane mode, he opened his messages and tapped out a quick _‘I’ve landed’_ before he slid it back into his pocket to find his luggage on the conveyor belt. He knew there would not be anybody to pick him up from the terminal, so he hailed a cab to take into the city of Seoul.

The driver rose an eyebrow at the use of his Korean and Yixing laughed shyly, he was out of practice but the man understood him enough to take him to the hotel that was his destination.

The building was impressively tall and fronted with glass that reflected the snow drifting down to the ground around him and he smiled once more before heading into the reception area. He checked in as fast as he could before he heard his name be yelled from the opposite end of the lobby. He looked over his shoulder to see Minseok shuffling his way and he moved away from the desk to greet him with a hug, they smaller male clutched him tightly.

“Jongdae got your message and sent me down to greet you,” Minseok’s face spread apart in a smile, “he’s busy sorting some stuff for the event room.”

“I’ll see him later, I’m sure.”

Minseok looked over Yixing’s shoulder, searching for something. Or rather, someone. “No plus one?”

“Ah no, things didn’t quite work out that way,” Yixing mumbled as the receptionist got his attention to hand him his keycard and the two friends made their way to the elevator. Yixing checked his room number and pressed the number button to take them up.

“I thought he was–” Minseok’s face dropped slightly. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ll have fun with us here.”

"Excited?" Yixing turned to his friend once more and Minseok's sympathy for his friend visibly ebbed away.

"How could I not be? It might not be legally binding but I get to marry the man I love in front of the people we are closest to."

"I'm happy for you guys," Yixing grinned at his friend with a genuine spread of emotion across his face and Minseok softened even further. "It doesn't matter if you're legally married or not, it's the sentiment of this whole thing that's important."

The two of them made their way over to the elevator and stepped onto the glossed floor, the mirror reflected their faces back to them, Yixing could see his friend's blissed out countenance as he bent over to press his floor number and Minseok gave him a long hug as soon as the doors slid shut.

"Drop these off in your room and I'll give you a quick tour of this place," the Korean smiled and Yixing bobbed his head affirmatively. "You don't know how much it means to me to have you here," Minseok mumbled against his shirt. "I've missed you so much since moving back."

"I missed you, too. Life feels different not seeing you every day."

"Not that you would have any time for me, Mr Bigshot Editor," Minseok's left eyebrow made a triangle as he smirked around his words and pulled back. "How many best-sellers is it now?"

"It's only the three," Yixing rolled his eyes and the shorter man scoffed.

"Three more than me."

Yixing fiddled with the handle on his bag and shifted the strap over his shoulder. "But your new place is doing well, I hear."

"Yeah, our customer intake is far higher than in China," Minseok nodded, "and Dae has had a ball being able to experiment with Korean food."

The bell of the doors opening resounded and the two of them stepped out into the carpeted corridor, Yixing looked at the pointers on the wall as he headed towards his room and Minseok tailed him happily. The sight of the mahogany door with his room number accented in gold on it made Yixing smile and he slid the keycard into the slot near the handle. The lock slid across and revealed the neutrally coloured space that Yixing would call home for the next few days.

Minseok reclined on the jamb while Yixing placed all of his items at the foot of the bed, the younger of the two flipped one of his cases open and pulled out a second sweater to pull on. He made sure his phone was definitely in his pocket and left the main area of the room to approach his friend. The elder showed him around and Yixing could see how comfortable Minseok was to be back in Korea, it was one the most pleasing sights he'd ever had.

Four days later, Yixing was sat in the front row as Minseok and Jongdae _married_ one another. Jongdae looked delirious with joy and while Yixing couldn't see his face, he knew the other Korean would have looked equally happy. Even though nothing about the whole event would be recognised by the law, Yixing could see how much it meant to the both of them and his heart ached as he took the whole day in. The Chinese male barely took in the people around him as he focused in on his best friends, even as everybody filled in to have the celebration afterwards.

He hadn't been there for half an hour before two arms went around his waist and there was a soothing kiss pressed behind his ear, "I'm sorry I'm late."

Yixing's stomach dropped with the heavy weight of love that he'd grown so used to, "I didn't think you were coming at all."

"I told you I would try to make it," Yifan whispered against the curve of Yixing's earlobe. "I promised it, in fact."

"But you were so busy when I left," Yixing curved his neck uncomfortably to look around at his boyfriend, "I was certain you wouldn't be able to make it."

"O ye of little faith," the taller laughed teasingly. "I wouldn't leave you stranded here for the full two weeks."

Yixing didn't respond but clutched at the suit jacket that hung over Yifan's shoulders when he turned to face him fully, his clothing smelt a little like the stale air that's on aeroplanes but that didn't fuss Yixing too much when he caught the familiar, but dulled, scent of Yifan's lavender aftershave.

"Do you want something to drink?" The taller grumbled and he stepped away without Yixing responding, the empty glass on the table next to Yixing was answer enough.

He watched Yifan walk away, the older man filled his fitted suit with tailored precision and found himself smiling at the mere sight of the other in the crowded room. He definitely filled out from being with Yixing, the elder ate more steadily and his body had even developed a little muscle with how often Yixing had dragged him to the gym.

"Is that him?"

Yixing's head whipped around. Baekhyun.

"Is who what?" Yixing's eyebrows creased at the vision of the other in front of him. His hair was a pale brunet shade, the black looked long gone.

"The _other_ man?" He pointed at Yifan with the index finger that clasped at his glass.

"Yeah, that's him."

 _"You're still together?_ " Baekhyun sounded shocked. “It’s been three years.”

"I love him," all the Chinese male could do was shrug as nonchalantly as he could.

Baekhyun didn't say anything whilst they continued to observe the carefree way Yifan interacted with the people around him and how comfortable he was when he spoke in Korean, which still managed to shock Yixing whenever he heard it. He could feel the resentment flowing from the man beside him but Yixing could see how much better he looked. His skin was clearer, his hair colour fit his softly coloured eyes and there was a vibrancy to how he looked. Yixing was sure that was the effect of love but he couldn't be certain.

It was all he could deduce from what had happened between himself and Yifan, as well as Minseok and Jongdae with their equally wide smiles.

"I still hate you, I hope you know that," Baekhyun's features had taken on a cutting appearance as he spoke. "I don’t know how Minseok-hyung and Jongdae could let you back in. I certainly won't ever forgive you."

Yixing gulped down a dry ball in his throat with his eyes cutting to the floor, "I wouldn't expect you to. You do look happier now, though. It's nice."

The Korean scoffed _‘nice’_ as he walked off, Yixing could understand the animosity that still remained but the reminders of what he'd done stuck everywhere. He guessed that was his punishment; his friends forgave him, but only after they had moved back to Korea, and he worked harder in his romantic relationship than he had ever done so before but he would always be the man who cheated, the adulterer. He could see the effects in his relationship with Yifan.

Jealousy came easily to the both of them, sudden moments of paranoia whenever they weren’t together swung around and their arguments hurt the most. However, they put the effort in to work through it. Long fights evolved over time into long discussions, nobody mentioned the thought of infidelity and neither of them loved the other less. Nothing was perfect but Yixing tried the best he could to show Yifan that they were different when they were together; Yixing wouldn’t stray and Yifan reassured him of the same.

Their talk in the park after Yixing had given his side of the story to Minseok and Jongdae had done a lot but it was far harder in practice. Neither of them knew how they would react when Yifan had to go away and Yixing spent long hours sorting his authors out. It was them stepping into the unknown without the flashlight of security most honest starting relationships had. It was something to be worked out as time passed but neither of them gave up.

Things began to tone down when the trust gently increased but the way their hearts beat for the other didn’t change.

Strangely enough, Lu Han and Tao had drawn Yixing into their small group easily once they realise how permanently he would be in Yifan’s life. Yixing didn’t know if Yifan had told them everything but he suspected that he probably had.

When Yifan arrived back to Yixing’s corner of the room, he wrapped Yixing up in his arms and kept him there. They danced in rocking motions to the music around them, Yixing swayed with his head on Yifan's chest, the taller's arms tightened around his waist and Yixing smiled into the space that the continual thudding of Yifan's heart vibrated from. It was hard to choose Yifan, it was hard to be with Yifan but Yixing knew that Yifan was a bridge he could never burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this, your comments and kudos are always appreciated~


End file.
